


Dust on the Ground

by grizzly_bear_bane



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: 1920s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Circus, Bane needs love, Barsad is not pleased, Barsad needs a hug, Carnivale-inspired, Drug Abuse, Dubious Consent prostitution moment, Freak Show, John is the only star is Bane's sky, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutism, PTSD, Roma "Gypsy", Sexual Violence, Star-crossed, Strong man, Trapeze artist, contortionist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:50:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grizzly_bear_bane/pseuds/grizzly_bear_bane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is the greatest trapeze artist and contortionist alive, Bane is the strongest man.</p><p>Bane is enamored with John and John seems to feel the same but the ring leader, their boss Mr. Foley is enraged that a freak show beast like Bane would hold John’s affections.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go again!
> 
> I reeeaaallyy love this one, and I hope you all enjoy it as well.
> 
> Comments, critiques, and cuddles always appreciated! <3

++++

**July 21, 1929: Detroit, MI**

Foley’s jaw twitched with irritation. His sleek red Duesenberg convertible coup had been an easy gateway into the hearts and between the legs of countless youths across the Midwest, yet the boy beside him was not impressed.

He turned off the engine and parked just outside of the fairgrounds where giant tents and trailers formed an arc around the larger, magnificently beautiful Big Tent.

Foley’s hand on John’s knee made him nervous but it was blocked out. It wasn’t the first time he’d gone looking for _one_ job and been propositioned to do another.

“So,” Foley squeezed his leg. “You’re a gypsy right?” There was hunger in his voice. It made John’s skin crawl.

“My mother's  _Roma_ , yes. But I’m not a prostitute." He picked up the man's hand and removed it from his personal space like it was a dirty napkin. "Sorry if I’m wasting your time or anything,” he answered, bored with this. Men only ever looked at him like that or asked that question when they wanted more than a trapeze boy.

Foley chuckled and lit his pipe. “Cute. You’re quite petite, and pretty John. If this gig doesn’t pan out for you, I’m sure I can find something else for you here.”

John wanted to roll his eyes to the heavens with a curse, but smiled back at Foley instead. “I’m sure.”

“We’ll head over to my trailer and you can show me what you’ve got. Have a stage name yet?”

+

**August 20, 1929: Kansas City, MO**

Foley looked impeccable in his top hat and brightly striped coat, his whip twirling in the air. “Prepare yourselves, ladies and gentlemen for an alluring performance. Keep your eyes fixed in the skies—and keep your lady’s hearts locked up safely men—for this amazing gypsy boy, the one and only Robin!”

Bane sat in his cage, making a piece of straw into a small rope. He wasn’t paying any attention to the show, his eyes were busy following his handler. Barsad said that Bane shouldn’t watch the shows; he would get too excited and have to be disciplined.

One of the older backstage workers shouted over the music playing, “You know you’re in the circus, boys, when the women can’t hold a candle to that boy out here!” 

A younger worker piped in, “Course not! He’s still got all his teeth and no beard,” and another shouted back, “And only the normal four limbs. Very fine limbs at that. No tattoos, neither,” as the crew erupted with laughter.

Bane didn’t understand the joke. He didn’t care, Barsad only smiled a little bit, so it must not have been anything important.

Except, when he looked to Barsad again, the man was no longer leaning on his cage. He was walking as if in a trance when he removed his hat and stepped closer to the edge of the main stage’s floor.

Bane dared to peek too and forgot about the rope in his hands. There was an angel flying across the tent sky. Bane was captivated by the fluidity of his movements, soaring and twirling. He held his breath, like everyone else watching held theirs, when the angel boldly flipped into the air, so high Bane feared he had flown away like a bird, but he returned, catching the swinging bar at the very last second to the sound of thunderous cheers.

Too loud. Bane gripped the bars of his cage, white knuckled, and was startled when Barsad whipped his fingers with a short stick.

“Easy big guy,” the Russian warned.

He took several deep breaths, just like Barsad taught him. The Russian continued to watch him until he was sure he’d calmed back down.

Bane returned to his rope braiding, but couldn’t stop himself from peeking again at the stage. There was a spotlight shining on the angel. The ringleader circled him with a smile Bane didn’t like, twirling his whip while the angel stood on his hands atop a crate and contorted into an impossible shape and then another.

He was embarrassed when he realized he was drooling into his muzzle again. Why was the angel here in front of all of these watching people? It made Bane angry.

“Careful, Barsad, your old boxer’s getting excited,” the nearest stage worker teased.

Barsad frowned, taking the sheet from behind the large cage and pulled it completely over Bane, covering him in darkness.

He wanted to be angry with Barsad, he always did, but he was grateful. He really was feeling better to some degree. He always felt better when Barsad protected him from all the lights and moving people. He could still hear the music playing even though he could not see it. He closed his eyes and imagined the angel soaring from swing to swing in an empty tent, just for Bane.

+

**September 2, 1929: Tulsa, OK**

There was something erotic about the way the Robin moved through his contortions on the aerial hoop. He would pull up his body with his arms, curl his back and hook his legs at the top of the circle before slowly lowering himself upside down, his hands sliding from his thighs to his hips in a way that could make the devil hot.

He sat up inside the circle with his legs spread in a V, rocking the circle and making it twirl like a tire swing, and when it was time to switch to his third and final routine, he would bend over backwards again, lowering himself onto the crate below, his body moving as if he were in a raptures on that crate.

He wasn’t skinny and boney like the rest of the contortionists and trapeze boys. He was slender, with the small curve of muscles necessary to propel his body and mold it into the shapes and angles that made every man in the audience pant and their wives seethe with envy. He was graceful, elegant even. He left nothing to the imagination in his tight costumes, and excelled in the way he persuaded the audience to love him. How he persuaded Foley.

He was trouble, Foley knew, watching the boy rise on his hands and arch his back, his legs curling over his shoulders. The Robin had his own personal act and not one of the other contortionists could complain. He was the only one, perhaps in all the fifty states, who could bend his body in half enough to put his ass on his head and stretch his legs out straighter than a board and finish off the move with an upside down split.

If Foley could fuck that boy, _that_ boy, who never looked at him twice—or at all, if he could help it, he would want for nothing ever again. Hell, he’d sell his coup, his pride and joy, for just one little piece. Ten minutes, tops, and he'd been in a paradise no heaven could compete with.

Foley cracked his whip, keeping time with the music, circling the ring of the stage. He didn’t understand. He wasn’t unattractive and old like other men in his profession, and he’d had no trouble screwing the rest of the contortionists. He was rich, he was famous— _he was a fucking catch, damn it_. He'd sent John gift after gift, had banners made in his honor and advertisements, given him a trailer meant for a star. Not that the boy didn’t deserve it, he certainly kept the crowds coming back, but couldn’t John at least show a little gratitude?

The Robin eased into a pose that would make a snake’s back break to the tune of more applause and whistles. He twisted, finishing in a one-handed split over his hands. Foley loved John’s costume the most when he did this routine and spent countless nights with boys from city to city thinking of all the perverse things he'd do to John the second he got his hands on that tiny little waist.

It was obvious that Foley played with fire when it came to this one. It didn’t miss his notice how the stagehands and animal tamers, and even that drooling brute Bane’s icy handler the Russian, all stopped and stared when the Robin took the stage. He was convinced that gypsy magic had to be involved with this one. The boy cast spells on every man who laid eyes on him night after night, was sent gifts from all over the country, and took not one of these men to his bed.

Which was fine with Foley. No other man deserved that kind of high quality conquest. John belonged to him, and it wouldn’t be long before he understood this as well.

+

**September 4, 1929: Oklahoma City, OK**

John liked to kid himself sometimes. He had a wicked sense of humor, though no one ever gave him a chance to crack a joke. He was laughing to himself right now, because after months of being here, and after years swinging around in tights and a sparkling leotard, he was still trying to convince himself that a hoard of men weren’t leering at him as he did his morning exercises. They would think him mad if he did laugh. Who knows, maybe that would finally drive them off. Nonetheless, if he could ignore them for at least a few more minutes, he could finish before Foley woke up and maybe get to the tent for practice without an issue for once.

There was a system to the way trailers and tents were set up in the circus caravans. To the east, the animals were closest to the Big Tent and their trainers lived just beyond them. The circus freaks made up the next arc and their handlers lived either with them or beside them. In the center were the repairmen and mechanics. On the west side, the fire-eaters, trapeze artists, and any others that made up the main events were beyond those. The ringleader had his own space near the man who financed the circus, the head boss, all the way to the northeast.

And yet, given another inch, John’s trailer would be underneath Foley’s. He had to walk and talk with the man every time he breathed and if he forgot to pull the curtains over his windows at night, Foley would be there knocking on the door, making an excuse to come in and try to fuck John for the hundreth time. Not only that, just to get to the other trapeze artists, he had to walk through nearly half the camp to get to the practise tent and pretend that the men weren't whistling and jeering at him like he was a half-naked showgirl from a casino.

If this weren’t the best circus in America, he would leave. But it was laughable still to think that things would change by moving on again. Ever since John was thirteen, he’d had to put up with everyone from his mother to the guy shoveling elephant shit calling him the ringleader’s whore. Simply being older or being someplace new changed nothing. To be fair, Foley hadn’t actually touched him like the last two ringleaders, but he was sure the man was close to cracking. All men were the same, wanted the same thing from him, though only the men in power were bold enough to actually make a move. Maybe if he swallowed his dignity and let a mechanic fuck him Foley would cease to see the appeal and move on.

Or John would get fired, which seemed the most likely.

By the time he was finished stretching a small crowd had formed to one side of his trailer. He pushed past the men dismissively and was pat on the ass and called a bitch several times until they were finally out of sight. John hated men and couldn’t understand why he was attracted to them—how could _anyone_ be attracted to them?

Suddenly he was pushed to the ground and dragged several feet off the path. He noticed the men shouting now that he wasn't distracted. The man on top of him still gripped his arms, ready to drag him again.

“God damn it, son, watch where you’re going next time or your ass won’t be so lucky,” the man huffed, pulling John to his feet.

He stood paralyzed with shock at the sight before him. A cage large enough for one of the bears was knocked on its side. Men threw chains and ropes around the hulking man who stood staring, heaving at the wreckage he’d caused.

“What the hell happened,” John asked brushing dirt off his breeches and boots.

“The horses pulling the wagon got spooked so that idiot brute Bane wrecked his cage _and_ the wagon. Don’t worry, son, the Russian’s got him, see?”

“Bane?” John tried to step closer, but was held back. The enormous man fell under the pull of so many ropes and chains. When he turned around, John could see the crude bulky muzzle over his mouth.

From the far side of the overturned cage, a young British lion tamer shouted, “Oh looky, Russian, your beast’s got his eyes on the little birdie!”

All the men but Barsad stopped to stare from Bane to John. John swallowed the ball of nerves in his throat, not a fan of being the center of attention when he wasn't getting paid. Bane was massive, built like a locomotive, and covered in scars. A particularly nasty scar ran down the length of his spine past the waist of his worn pants. His muzzle dripped, but his eyes were as sharp as a falcon’s.

John realized that he’d stepped closer only when he reached the edge of Bane’s shadow. The large man didn’t roar or rampage, just sat where he’d fallen, heaving in tired breaths, his eyes shifting from here and there and back to John nervously.

John took out a small handkerchief from his pocket, moving slowly, carefully to wipe Bane’s muzzle.

But the Russian grabbed his wrist in a bruising grip. He looked just as frayed and tired as Bane. “Don’t. I won’t be held responsible when he snaps your little wing off.”

John stumbled back, flenching when the handler whipped Bane across the back of the neck to get his attention off John.

“Oh don’t be so mean, Barsad, he don’t come this way often enough to know the rules, right little birdie,” the Brit teased, helping another man right the cage on another wagon and lock it shut once Bane was back inside. Barsad didn’t bother to entertain the tamer or offer thanks to any of the men who’d helped. He had the tarp ready to throw over the cage again.

John watched him stir the horses towards the Big Tent. “Why the hell do they keep him in a cage, like some… animal?”

The lion tamer spit on the ground, smirking. “Because he _is_ an animal, boy.”

+

Bane was a simple man with simple likes and dislikes. He liked Barsad when he wasn’t hitting him, and he disliked taking off his muzzle for mealtimes.

It was his only safety net, the only thing that truly belonged to him.

He wished Barsad would pull the sheet over his cage when he had to take off his muzzle. He didn’t understand many things but he knew enough to interpret the feelings behind those who gawked at him and called him names.

He could crush their necks, crush this cage, stomp the world into a million pieces, but still they mocked him and treated him like he was dumb.

The cage was not a safety net for Bane. The men used it to protect themselves whenever they made Bane angry, to the point that Bane wasn't allowed outside the cage at all except for exercise and showtime. He wished he could shout at them like Barsad did. His handler could give as good as Bane got.

Some times Bane grew fearful that Barsad get be hurt, like he once was. It didn’t matter how strong he was. And Barsad was such a skinny man. He was the only man who never flinched at Bane’s anger. Maybe he knew that Bane would never hurt him, at least not on purpose. Bane was grateful to have that trust.

Some times Bane wondered if Barsad liked being his handler. Most days it didn’t seem so, but then Barsad would surprise him with candy or a toy, like the brand new teddy bear he’d proudly stolen from some patron’s child. Bane wanted to be offended whenever Barsad gave him children’s things. He was a man, a very strong and scary man.

It didn’t stop him from loving the bear.

Barsad returned to Bane’s cage when he was nearly finished with his porridge, smelling of alcohol again with a red ribbon balled up in his hand.

Bane eyed him curiously, not sure if Barsad was still angry about this morning. He hadn’t meant to scare the horses. If he was honest with himself, hearing his unused voice try to make a sound into a word had startled him just as much. But he’d seen the angel again, in clothes like everyone else wore and it surprised him. He was just a man like Bane, albeit a very small one. Bane wanted to say hello but didn’t know how and spooked the horses instead. It was incredibly embarrassing.

“Get your head out of the clouds, Bane. Try to finish your meal,” Barsad urged.

But Bane was lost in thought and it was always difficult to pull himself back out. He had been filled with shame when the young man saw him fall. He’d been prepared to be mocked, but instead the man reached out to him, unafraid.

He gripped the cage. Barsad hit his fingers with the stick. Bane moved to sit further away from the bars but he was still unfocused.

The Russian rapped the stick across the bars. “If you don’t eat, I won’t give you this gift.”

Bane piped up and hurried to finished as the man moved to the back of the cage and grabbed the bear. Barsad cut his eyes at the larger man sternly in warning when Bane balled up his fists.

He panicked, thinking Barsad was taking his bear away, but when the Russian propped the bear back in its former spot the bright red ribbon was tied around its neck in a bow.

“I know this morning was difficult but you carried yourself well with the young man. That was very good Bane, very good,” the Russian muttered low so only Bane could hear even though no one else was around.

Tears clung to his eyelashes. It wasn’t often that he received praise from Barsad.

He spooned the last of the porridge into his mouth as best he could though some spilled from the jagged gap of the scarred over gash near his jaw. It bothered Bane but he refused to get angry over it; he doubted if he’d ever get used to having the hole in his face.

“No, no, no. I think you’ve caused enough stress for one day. Get lost,” Barsad said, confusing Bane until he looked up.

“I just wanted to return this,” John said. “I think he dropped it earlier.” His rope.

Barsad crossed his arms rather than take the offered rope. “Bane chews on that thing through his muzzle. It’s dirty.”

“My hands are clean.” He held them palm up, deliberately misunderstanding Barsad's meaning.

Bane watched Barsad, wondering why he stared at the smaller man.

After a long moment, Barsad relented. “What’s your name, boy?” When he answered, Barsad looked all around them. Everyone was either napping or taking their lunch under the shade of the mess hall tent so he said, “Well, John, since you are so determined, climb up on tire and give it to him.”

It was a challenge, to scare him off. John looked at Bane for the first time, clearly nervous, but he gripped the bars and stepped up on the tire, easily slipping through the gap in the bars.

Bane stared in awe as John knelt in front of him with the rope. It didn’t take much encouragement from John or Barsad to accept it. He clutched it to his chest reverently.

John pulled out his handkerchief again and dabbed it carefully at the corner of Bane’s mouth.

“I didn’t ask you do to do all that, John. If he mauls you, I’m leaving town in Foley’s automobile. You’re on your own,” Barsad scratched the stubble on his chin, gripped with anxiety. He watched them closely, making sure John didn’t upset Bane, watching John’s face for any sign of a hidden motive. It wouldn’t be the first time someone played with Bane just to touch his face.

John ignored him and only stopped his doting when Bane’s mouth was clean and dry. “There. Now you’re ready for a wedding,” he winked. He didn’t see what all the fuss was about. Bane had as much spark in him as a brick. And John would be the first to admit that without the muzzle, even with half of his mouth missing, well... “My ma always told me I should be more careful. I always get into trouble when I mess around with you strong and silent types.” He wanted to squeeze the man’s arms, his traps, see if his muscles were as rock solid as they looked. He didn’t think Bane owned a shirt and wasn’t ashamed to admit that he liked that.

Bane didn’t move. He’d forgotten that his muzzle was still in his lap and yet John wasn’t disgusted at all. And there were dimples on his face when he smiled. Smiled at Bane, _talked_ to Bane, not to Barsad like everyone else did. Bane felt parts of his body stirring that he’d long since forgotten their purpose. He reached for John.

Barsad was halfway through the bars with lightning speed but paused when John’s face wasn’t smashed in. Bane touched John’s lips and chin with a gentleness Barsad had long since forgotten he was capable of.

Footsteps and loud chatter rose up in the distance. John nipped the pad of Bane thumb and flashed him one last smile before easing his way out of the cage. Barsad watched John hop down beside him, nodding noncommittally at the boy's retreating back as he hurried off to avoid the approaching crowds.

“Strange boy, huh Bane” he muttered, slipping through the bars to refasten the muzzle on Bane who was staring at the small rope braid in his hand like it was the most valued diamond in the world.

+


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is definitely one of TWO updates to look out for this week for this fic. No worries, friends, Goliath is still on and popping, but for now, here's more of this.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
>  
> 
> **And good luck on your exams princess-joseph!**

+

**September 8, 1929: Dallas, TX**

John slipped out of his costume quickly. Now that the line up was changed he could finally see Bane’s part of the show—if he only got dressed fast enough to slip past Foley before the man finished his ‘meet-and-greet’ with a brand new fanboy, who once again looked eerily like John, in his own dressing room next door. He rushed backstage in time to catch the end of Bane’s set through the curtains.

He was more than a little jealous of the large bearded lady in Bane’s arms as he paraded her around stage, her breasts nearly pouring out of her corset and dress. Bane looked good, though his muzzle was chained to a hook in the floor.

There were various objects littered around the stage; weights, tires, a bowling ball here, a granite boulder there. It was up to the audience to decide what they wanted to see Bane lift or crush next.

John snickered when he saw that the bearded lady and a smaller woman covered in tattoos were fawning over Barsad now, who sulked in the corner looking irritable—and probably drunk, if the flask behind his back was any indication.

John felt odd watching the show. He’d never stuck around for any other set after his was done, never felt the need. Any interest shown in another person’s routine for John and he’d have to deal with one more man and their grabby hands getting the wrong idea. But with Bane, he almost wanted… In truth it had been a long time since he’d let anyone touch him, but this didn’t feel like his usual need. Those times came from boredom and loneliness and always ended in a headache. It was a rare occasion for him to actually pine over someone. He didn’t quite know what to make of this.

The crowd cheered when Bane pulled apart a heavy chain like a simple piece of string.

John’s heart skipped a beat when Bane lifted the heavy boulder with one arm. He shivered, imagining what that strength must feel like to touch and—

His heart shriveled up and hid somewhere under his ribcage when rather than just lift the bowling ball Bane crushed it with his gloved hands like it was a god damn snowball. Several people in the audience recoiled as well.

John stepped back, jaw on the floor. Okay. Maybe there was _some_ truth to everyone’s hysteria when it came to Bane grabbing things, but those same hands had held John’s face with the tenderness of a lover—not that John knew much about tenderness from his own past lovers, and he’d be surprised if someone like Bane did either. Nonetheless the capability was there.

And the way the man tossed down the debris from the concrete he crumbled, his muscles rippling under his sweat covered skin. John was tempted to let a man pick him up and take him to one of the finer hotels in the city just so he could soak in a long, long hot bath and think of all the wonderful things those hands could do.

At the end of the set a little girl in a bright blue dress ran up to the edge of the stage with an empty tin can. To everyone’s amazement, when she handed it to Bane he pretended, just for the girl’s sake, that he couldn’t possibly crush the can between his massive hands. He tried for a good minute and finally handed it back to the girl who crushed it with ease. John’s spirit soared when Bane and the others on stage applauded the girl’s superior strength.

It floored John. How could a man like that be stuffed into a cage and muzzled like a rabid dog? But Barsad still looked about ready to curl into a ball and have the anxiety attack that would end all anxiety attacks.

It was all very strange.

+

**September 13, 1929: Austin, TX**

“I wondered when you’d come back,” the Russian let the faintest most minuscule grin John had ever seen slip passed his tired expression. He was soaked in sweat hitching the cage to the back of his trailer.

John sat on the hitch, holding it in place for Barsad to secure the hook and chains. “I’ve been breaking my back – knock on wood – practicing the new routine all week. Mr. Wayne loves Houston so we all got to make sure both shows are perfect.”

“But your shows are always perfect,” the Russian observed, out of breath.

“Here,” John offered, “It's a cup of Ms. Mabel’s famous sunshine brew.” He frowned when Barsad refused the bearded lady’s ice-cold jar of lemonade in exchange for the flask in his pocket. “Your engine sure does take in a lot of heavy fuel, Barsad,” he teased, climbing inside the cage to get Bane to unstrap his muzzle while Barsad wasn’t looking.

“He won’t drink it. Not yet anyways, not where you can see,” Barsad warned, not bothering to turn around and see what John was up to.

John eyed Bane. “Don’t go all shy around me, Bane. Wait until you see me eat and you’ll know that you’re a lot neater than I’ll ever be.” Bane’s eyes crinkled. John wished that he could see more of his face again, but Barsad wasn’t helping with the muzzle, neither would Bane anymore, and it was too damn difficult to figure out by himself.

He pushed the little jar Bane’s way and stood up, grasping the bars overhead with his hands and climbing up with his feet until he could lazily flip over. “Well I’m certainly happy to know how easy you are to please, Mr. Barsad, but you liking my old routine won’t line Mr. Wayne’s pockets. So…until that show is over, my name’ll be John Blake the Workhorse.” He hooked his legs in the bars and smiled at Bane upside down.

He could swear that Bane was smiling back, at least with his eyes. The man wanted to touch John, his fingers twisting loops in the straw he held, but Barsad would never allow it.

Barsad stopped working long enough to watch John practice a few trapeze warm ups. “Bane thinks your shows are perfect too. He has been missing you, haven’t you Bane?”

If Bane was blushing behind that muzzle or not, he still ducked his head and pretended to focus on braiding another piece of rope. It was obvious that he listened to John and Barsad talk, and enjoyed watching John play with his cage. Bane still didn’t like his cage but he certainly didn’t hate it anymore with John in it.

“I saw your show a few nights ago, Bane. That was sweet what you did for that little girl.”

Bane ducked his head further. Barsad’s tiny grin was tinged with a sadness John didn’t understand. “He’s very good with children.”

“Could have fooled me, the way people act around here. Unless it was your idea to keep him in a cage,” John tried to sound casual but even he couldn’t deny how incriminating the words came out.

Barsad shot daggers at him, but his expression switched back to tired in a flash. “Ask your boyfriend, Mr. Foley.”

John’s feet were back on the floor of the cage. He smoothed out his shirt and took a swig of the lemonade. Bane watched him lick his lips. “Who knew you were so funny, Barsad. That joke almost had teeth. What’s Foley got to do with Bane?”

Barsad sighed, “Everything.” He watched Bane grab John’s leg a little too roughly to get his attention. When John looked Bane’s way, he handed him the new rope.

John smiled beautifully. Not a single one of Foley’s gifts made him ever feel this special. The rope was simple and crude, but small. Too small for Bane’s thick fingers to rush through. He’d taken his time, put in so much effort to make it, just for John.

John looped it around his wrist, making a braclet. He noticed that Barsad had one on his wrist as well. He bent over Bane and kissed his forehead several times, but before he could thank him, Barsad had him by the wrist dragging him out of the cage with strength that could have rivaled Bane’s as far as John’s screaming wrist was concerned.

Barsad body slammed John into the side of his trailer. Seething he glared at Bane over his shoulder, daring the man to touch the bars of the cage. Barsad tightened his bruising grip on John until he stopped his feeble struggling. “I don’t know what your purpose is, but if you are only playing with him as some sick joke you can fuck off now or I won’t feel sorry when he rips out your spine through your mouth, do you understand me, boy?”

John nodded quickly unable to form words and was let go at once. He sat on the ground in shock, massaging his wrists. He stared at Barsad wide eyed, expecting the man to strike him.

He wasn’t far off. Barsad pulled the tarp over Bane, securing it tightly and grabbed John’s arm, pulling him up from the grass. “Is your trailer hitched up front with Foley’s?” At John’s nod, he pushed him into the cab of his pick-up truck and started the engine when the trucks around his began the slow trek into the next city.

+

John sat pressed against the passenger door, ready for the Russian to snap again.

Barsad emptied his flask and tossed it onto the seat. After a few miles he breathed in heavy. “Sorry,” he muttered to the road ahead.

John’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling. “Sorry?”

“Do you have any idea how many times women and men like you have thrown themselves at Bane only to spit him out when they were good and ready, or when they were satisfied with whatever joke they were running? Hm? Enough for me to know that no one is genuine with him. People will court him with kindness only to rip it away the second he trusts them. And I don’t have to be angry about it, because his memory is shit, but that only makes each time fresh, his pain, when they stop showing up to see him or when they outright laugh in his face.”

“So kicking the shit out of me is your plan for, what, protecting him?”

Barsad scratched his chin. “Sorry. I—don’t put your feet on the seat, please—I like you, John, because you’re good at handling Bane and because he won’t stop pestering me about you whenever you don’t come by to see him after every few days—”

“Bane talks to you?”

“No… but we have our ways of communicating. He likes you, John. Perhaps more than he’s liked anyone in a very long time. And I’m guessing from what I’ve seen and heard about you, men liking you is about as rare as sand in the desert, so if you only intend to grow bored and disappear, please do so now.”

John opened and closed his mouth several times before giving up and staring at the man beside him.

“Well?” Barsad glanced at him, expecting a response. “What are your intensions?”

John sighed. “I like him too. Don’t ask me why or how a man who can’t talk – or won’t – and who lives in a cage got my eye, but he does. Like you said, there are plenty of others I _could_ like, but I don’t. Hell, if I could look at Foley without my eyes catching on fire and my skin rotting off then I’d be laying in his trailer right now in his silk robe modeling his watch collection on his satin sheets drinking his Japanese tea from his polished china collection with my legs wrapped around his head, but as you can see…” He spread out his hands showcasing his current predicament. “And don’t think I haven’t tried to will my brain in that direction. But I guess if life were actually fair Bane wouldn’t be muzzled in a cage right now, huh?” He sank down in the seat, his arms crossed. “So what about these others? You saying I got competition?”

“No, to be honest, you’re the first in several years.”

“How long have you been Bane’s handler?”

Barsad shrugged a shoulder. “I have been his brother for far longer.”

+

Barsad can only recall a very short period in time when he and Bane had an easy life. He remembers one scorching summer in a large white house with checkered tiles and elephants and lions roaming the golden plains beyond the fences, Bane parading him around the kitchen and under the table on his back pretending to be one of those elephants. Barsad was five, Bane was nine.

Bane doesn’t remember many things, least of all his father, but Barsad does remember a time when his own father treated Bane as more than just a stepson. It was Barsad who stuttered and was slow reading. Bane stopped speaking on his behalf. They created their own language, free of spoken words until the time that Barsad’s speech wouldn’t make his father upset.

He remembers, several years later, waking up one morning and his father not being there. Months passed, Bane had a birthday and then another, and when the man returned, their whole world changed.

They moved to Kiev. To an apartment. Barsad had no idea houses could be so small and stacked on top of one another. Where were the elephants? He met his grandmother there one time and then never saw her again. When he was nine his father hit his mother, hit Bane harder. Now Bane truly couldn’t speak properly anymore. There was a thunderstorm in that tiny house everyday. His father changed, as did Bane. He was preparing himself for the final storm and when it hit, Bane was ready.

Barsad chooses not to remember exactly how his father killed his mother a year later, but he does remember Bane’s vengeance, the way his father’s eyes bulged in a mix of surprise and panic that Bane was stronger than he was, that his hands could crush his neck so effortlessly.

Barsad can’t be sure what caused Bane the most damage. His father? The boxing? The war? Heroin addiction doesn’t make one forget he has a brother, it didn’t make him forget how to formulate words either.

Barsad’s first drink was in Amsterdam at fourteen. Bane was winning boxing matches faster than he could be booked for them. Barsad met Natasha that same winter and was married a year later. Had he listened to her perhaps, he and Bane would have never migrated to Russia on the eve of war, but Bane’s talents called for it. With his winnings, they could have a house in St. Petersburg and another daughter perhaps, and Bane could find a wife as well.

German forces didn’t kill Barsad’s wife and child, the Russians did, for living on their soil and refusing to enlist Bane’s muscle for their cause. It didn’t matter that Bane was down with another head injury, they were both shipped off before Natasha and Zoe’s bodies were in the ground.

Things blur after that, he tells John. He and Bane never held a gun in their hands and now they were charging through broken cities with blood under their boots and bombs falling overhead. Lucky for Barsad he had natural talent and became a sniper. Bane was proud and relieved that Barsad could be safe at his high vantage points but Bane was still open, exposed on the ground.

Ironically it was Barsad who was captured. He was in the best condition out of all the other hostages but he could give the Germans no information about Russia’s efforts. He and Bane's nationalities were as Russian as John was an actual bird; Barsad had no idea why he was always called Russian in later years, like now with the circus, but it hardly mattered.

If the war had lasted another year, perhaps he and Bane would have been forced to fight for the Germans. The story of Bane’s one-man rescue of Barsad and the hostages spread like wildfire and had several armies vying for his capabilities. Rumors followed them wherever they went of a man who’d run through gunfire, riddled with bullets and then tore down the concrete wall separating him from his brother. If you asked Bane, if the man could talk, he would tell you the story was not about him; he doesn’t have a brother, and does not remember ever fighting in a war. His memories are trapped, deep down in dreams and nightmares, in too bright lights and too loud noises.

Some time after the war in their Istanbul days of his boxing career, Bane discovered that opium was effective for more than just pain suppression. Rebecca was responsible for that. Barsad wasn’t sure if Bane and her were actual lovers. The only thing Rebecca got from Bane was the thrill of seeing him nearly kill his opponents, and his money. She played on his dementia, encouraged his addiction, tore him away from Barsad.

Barsad wanted to remember how long it was before he saw Bane again, but that time was lost at the bottom of bottles in alleys in whatever city he’d trekked to next. Only fate, he knew, brought him back to Bane in time.

He would never know whether Bane and Rebecca were actual lovers, but Rebecca and Bane’s manager Oscar were.

Bane remembers his mother, the elephants, Barsad’s grandmother. He remembers every detail of every boxing match he’s ever won or lost. He does not remember that Barsad is his half brother. He does not remember the war. He does not remember killing Rebecca and Oscar, or trying to tear his own jaw off his face in a heroin-fueled bout of hysteria.

His dementia only worsened when Barsad took him to America and forbid the drugs. His aggression and anxieties were out of control. No boxers would fight him for fear of their safety and most strongman competitions had similar liability concerns. But wherever they traveled no one could deny that Bane’s abilities were unparalleled by ocean-sized margins. His build and form, though scarred and mauled, was art within itself.

It was only natural that the Waynes would send Foley with an invitation to join the circus—with precautions set in place, of course. It only took one show, and the stadiums and Big Tent never ceased to sell out.

It also only took one time for Foley to snap at Barsad over a simple miscommunication and Bane, rather than go after Foley like he wanted to, killed one of the grizzlies with his bare hands.

Foley put him in the bear’s cage in exchange for firing him.

It was as simple as that.

+

John’s feet were on the seat again, an arm wrapped loosely around his legs, his chin on his knee. “Wow,” he breathed, feeling winded. What else could he say?

Barsad’s eyes were focused on the road. He itched for another drink but his moonshine supply was tucked away in the trailer.

“Barsad…when do you get a break?”

He shrugged his shoulder again. “I don’t. If Bane makes one mistake, if one single person is hurt, it’s over. Foley’s rich, we’re not. If he killed Bane, no one would think twice about it.” He chewed his lip, looking especially frayed. “Bane is an imperfect man, but he is my brother. I must care for him.” Barsad glanced his way, his quarter smile back. “Don’t all brothers do that for one another?”

John snorted. “I got two older brothers. No, they don’t. Mostly never, in fact.”

“You don’t like your brothers?”

“I hate my brothers.” When Barsad glanced back in question John sighed, annoyed. “Let’s just say that apart from my father – which is probably only because I’ve never met my father, and I don’t want to assume too much about you this soon but I’m hoping at least that I’m right – you are the only man who’s ever been in my life for more than ten minutes that didn’t want to put his dick in me.”

“But…your mother couldn’t have let—”

“If either one of my good-for-nothing brothers had a cent to their names, then yes, she would have. Trapeze boys don’t have a long shelf life, no matter how famous, and her one concern is me being able to feed and clothe myself once I retire. God, if she was here, she’d have had me sold off to Foley faster than that man could blink.”

“That sounds very toxic, John," he frowned, "I’m glad that you were able to free yourself from that environment.”

It was John's turn to shrug now. How could Barsad have any pity for him after living such a life with Bane?

“Yeah well, I suppose it not all bad. Better to be looked at too much than not at all, right? I could be like poor Ms. Mabel, all alone with no one to open doors for her.”

Barsad was quiet for a moment, watching the road and then, “I think Ms. Mabel is pleasant to be around.”

John tried to copy Barsad’s nonchalance. “She’s very fond of you.”

“Perhaps.”

John held back his grin. “You should pay her a visit some time. See if she needs help hitching her trailer next week, or maybe if you’re good with a pair of scissors, help her keep her beard preened. She’d like that, you know.”

Barsad shot him a long look, his brows raised. At first John figured the man thought he was being a smart ass, before he noticed the disheveled stubble on Barsad’s face and neck. So the man really did have a sense of humor. John chuckled, “Yeah, maybe it would be better if she took care of yours instead. Do you even own a comb?”

Barsad’s tiny grin was back and growing. “Used to. No time for such things anymore.”

“Don’t worry,” John promised, looking out at the road ahead, calculating. “I’ll get you time.”

+

**September 15, 1929: Houston, TX**

John took Barsad at his word, that if after hearing Bane’s story, knowing his challenges, even his risk to John’s safety, if after all that he still wanted Bane, then Barsad would give him permission to spend more time with him. He spent the next several days practicing and thinking, performing and thinking, and then thinking some more.

He let an attractive enough man in a nice suit with a pretty gold wedding band on his finger kiss and grope him on a stack of hay behind the Big Tent. Didn’t matter how good the distraction was, all he could think of was Bane.

+


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy fuck this is jammed packed.
> 
> CONGRATS EVERYONE ON YOUR FINALS AND WHATNOT. YOU ARE ALL VICTORIOUS WARRIORS OF KNOWLEDGE.
> 
> And now for some more Bane feels and cage...exercising.
> 
> Enjoy!

+

**September 20, 1929: Baton Rouge, LA**

In a way, the hurricane in the Gulf was a blessing and a curse.

The rain came down like a monsoon, cancelling the show that evening.

John was soaked to the bone, his shirt nearly translucent under the downpour. He wished he’d thought to wear at least his waistcoat, but the afternoon had been too hot for layers. His boots were caked with mud and he was pretty sure even his boxers were wet. He wished he could go curl up under his quilt in his trailer, but not yet. He was on a mission.

He supposed it never occurred to anyone that keeping a man in a cage with no roof over his head could lead to him getting sick and dying—and wouldn’t that be horrible for the show and all those brand new posters Mr. Wayne had made? John was beyond pissed when he’d gone to visit Bane and found Barsad trying to stitch up the holes in the tarp over his cage. They both looked miserable, and Bane seemed resigned to sit in a puddle and shiver.

The rain could last for days. It was already getting worse, and John could see the two supply trucks that tried to leave early for the next city stuck in the mud just up the winding road.

If John could just find—

“You’re ruining those boots, little birdie,” the lion tamer shouted to his left. He was under a makeshift awning leaning against a supply truck with a dozen others smoking pipes and drinking some liquid that looked like mud in a jar.

John turned shivering and gave his best smile to the oldest man in the bunch. “Just the man I’ve been looking for. Mr. Alfred?” John remembered him from Oklahoma City. “I heard you’re the man to go to for a tent.”

“I am,” he grinned. “I don’t think my men are very pleased with you trapeze boys making curtains out of my tents supplies.” Several of the men chuckled and nodded, leering at John.

He ignored them, and held out his hands. “I don’t know anything about that, sir. I’m sorry. But…I do need a big favor.”

“And what’s that,” he asked, passing the jar to the next man.

He wiped water from his face, feeling like he’d just swam a few laps down the Mississippi in his clothes. “It’s about Bane. I was wondering if you could give him a small tent. I know he’s not allowed in a trailer and that’s fine, but I just don’t think it’s fair for him to be out in the elements like this.”

“The little birdie’s doing social work now,” one of the others muttered to a man who replied, “He should take care of me instead.”

“Oi, he’s a brute,” the lion tamer spit in the mud, “A little rain don’t hurt him, but you ought to dry off before you catch something, little birdie.”

Alfred chuckled with the others, still chewing over his request. “I’m not inclined to go out and work in this downpour. You know us older fellows got to be careful of wet weather and such. Did Foley put you up to this?”

Foley was the last person he wanted to go to about Bane, particularly now that he knew their history. “No. But please? I mean look at this shit. At least we all got places to go, but he’s got nothing but that cage.” The lion tamer moved to speak but John cut him off. “Even your cats have shelter. Please,” he asked Alfred.

Alfred took back the jar. “Come in under this cover, boy, before you drown.”

John would actually rather drown then get into their personal space and get pipe smoke blown in his face, but that wouldn’t help Bane, would it?

It was almost comical how fast Alfred’s merry old man attitude changed when John stepped closer. “What compensation do we get for helping you? I don’t want none of Foley’s tokens, or your little money. Hm?”

Great. John bit his tongue rather than spit in the man’s face. He should have just taken the bullet and gone to Foley because being here, on his own behalf, confirmed something for these men. He didn’t belong to Foley like the ringleader bragged. He was free pickings and they’d found a good enough hole to trap him in. John weighed his options. What was his willing to do for Bane, he asked himself. In answer the rain just poured from the skies even harder. The puddles were turning into small ponds.

“Well,” he swallowed. Every man surrounding him watched his throat. He swallowed again with difficulty, wishing he could evaporate, or wishing he were heartless enough to forget about Bane and walk away from this. “I’m willing to negotiate. Can you have the tent up in the next few hours?”

Alfred shrugged, puffing out little clouds from his pipe. “I’d say that depends, Mr. Blake,” he unbuckled his belt and a few others followed suit. “Depends on how well you can persuade us to your cause.”

+

John felt colder now that he’d been out of the rain for an hour. His knees were numb, his tongue felt like he’d been sucking on sandpaper and his jaw felt like it was screwed in upside down. He could see why Bane would want to tear his own off; it was going to give him hell for the rest of the night.

But it was worth it seeing the tent go up. It was surprisingly larger than he’d hoped for. It would be perfect for giving Bane room to stretch his legs, if John could figure out how to get him out of that cage without causing a ruckus, but he figured he’d done enough in the way of good deeds for the day.

One of the workers came up behind him from his minimal cover under the nearby tree. He wrapped his arms around John’s waist tightly, breathing in his ear, “You’re very talented, little birdie. Alfred’s a hard old man to please. He’s going to put the tent in Bane’s contract. No more sitting in the rain for him.”

“Lucky Bane,” he cringed away from the man’s appalling breath as politely as he could, relieved when he finally stumbled off with the rest of the group.

The lion tamer, one of the only men who hadn’t taken advantage of John’s mouth, smoked a cigar nearby, watching, and followed the men back to their hideout in the supply truck without a word.

Ms. Mabel whistled him over to the open door of her trailer with supplies and lemonade, happy to see Bane get the tent.

When John ducked under the tent flap he was surprised to see Barsad taping his wrist. It was heavily bruised. Bane perked up at once, though his eyes were still drinking in all the colors of the tent fabrics.

Barsad glanced over as John pushed a thick quilt through the bars for Bane to sit on and placed the two lanterns on the haystacks near the cage.

John handed him the second jar when Barsad offered him a stack dry clothing. He blushed, wondering if he looked as disheveled as he felt, but thanked him anyways. “She put something extra in it for you.”

Barsad tasted the liquor at once and drank it half down. “This is good.”

John grinned and sat on a haystack. He peeled out of his shirt. “You should thank her for it. She hates alcohol.”

“Perhaps. So selling your body for this tent was your way of getting time alone with Bane?”

It was like a smack in the face he hadn’t been prepared for. He paused, one boot still on his foot.

To be fair, he’d never expected Barsad to be the type to beat around the bush—though John sure as hell was. “What happened to your wrist?”

“John.”

His shoulders sank. “I didn’t. Not exactly.”

“But certainly enough of it. You’re smart, but still a naïve boy. Men talk, though thankfully they all hate Foley so they won’t talk to him.”

“Well, what was I supposed to do?” He pulled off his suspenders and wrung them out.

“Maybe something that wouldn’t make them hound you more.” He shrugged. “We’ve handled worse weather. Bane is much stronger than you give him credit for.”

“Wouldn’t any man get tired of having to be that strong all the time,” he muttered, his back turned to take off his breeches. He heard Barsad mutter something to Bane sharply in another language and glanced over, his cheeks burning. Bane was having a small fit seeing John strip down to his boxers. His hands were on the bars.

When Bane finally backed off Barsad turned to John, massaging his wrist with a grimace. “My wrist is sprained. Yesterday morning, I went into the cage to remove Bane’s muzzle and he showed me his feelings in regards to when I hurt yours.”

John schooled his expression but winked a small thank you over to Bane who watched him intently through the bars as he redressed.

“He gets antsy when he doesn’t see you everyday. And snappy.”

“I’ll come back more often then, especially since we won’t all have to be outside anymore. It’s actually quite nice in here.” He could do his exercises here, have some privacy.

“Just don’t do us anymore favors. I don’t want you getting hurt for Bane.”

John paused again. “Actually,” he pet the teddy bear Bane handed him, “I was wondering… and it’s entirely up to you, but… do you think—”

“No. Everyone is safer if he stays in the cage, particularly Bane. And don’t think Foley won’t make you pay dearly for it if you ask him. Those other men, they want to fuck everything that isn’t covered in fur or bearded, but Foley’s eyes are squarely on you, John. He’s powerful.”

John sighed, leaning on the bars and watched Barsad help Bane removed his muzzle for water and a large bowl of fruit. He took the strawberry offered him and let Bane touch his lips while he ate it and then a grape. “Thank you Bane.”

He reached in and picked up Bane’s muzzle, used his handkerchief to clean the inside. It was much heavier than Bane and Barsad made it seem. There was a bar behind the grill covering. John wondered how the man still had any teeth in his mouth after chomping down on the bar so much. Maybe that was why he had to wear a muzzle in the first place, though Barsad never mentioned anything about Bane having a biting problem.

“Don’t do that Bane, stop it,” Barsad swatted at his reaching hands as the man tried to pull John into the cage.

“It’s not okay to go in with him?” To be honest, Bane’s urgency made him a little nervous. He put the muzzle back down. Bane grabbed his forearm.

“Don’t resist or he’ll break it.” Barsad argued with Bane in that other language again. Bane bristled and answered Barsad with a strange hand gesture. Barsad left the tent in a huff leaving John behind. He returned with his stick. Bane let go and moved to sit against the back bars. He wasn’t about to give Barsad a reason to discipline him in front of John.

Barsad held his ground. At last, Bane’s shoulders relaxed, his breathing leveled out, calming.

John watched from a short distance, feeling like an intruder.

“When he grabs you like that, it might not always mean what you think. He could forget who you are and pull your arm off. Or just over excite himself and become clumsy with his strength, like he just did. Best to be safe.” Barsad almost sounded amused. “Plus, if he pulls you in that makes you my responsibility, but whenever you go in of your own accord, that’s your risk, not mine.”

“Good to know,” he muttered, looking back at Bane who was still eyeing him with that unfamiliar intensity. It lit a fire in the pit of his stomach. The threat was real, very real, yes, but that didn’t stop John’s want from building.

“He’s usually on his best behavior when you visit.”

John was still admittedly a little hesitant to go in the cage. “I can imagine you get awfully bored just sitting in here all the time, huh Bane?”

“Forget it, John.”

“I just don’t think it’s right for him to be treated like this. What if he could stretch his legs just in here? He doesn’t have to be out of the cage on the grounds. I could sweet talk Foley into being more lenient, or at least try. You know he’ll say yes, just on account of me acknowledging his existence long enough to ask him, so what’s the problem?”

“Think about yourself in this situation, John. What are you willing to let Foley do to you for Bane? And what happens when he doesn’t stop? Or finds more ways to bribe you? Would you sign over your soul to the devil, John?”

He had a point.

“Do you know what happened to the old lion tamer,” he said at last to John though his eyes were on Bane. “He believed that you could tame a lion, turn it into an exotic housecat, if you just put in enough effort. He would sleep in the cage with them some nights, would feed them steak and milk out of bowls he would sit in his lap, John. He used to stick his head in one lion’s mouth during his routine—just as Eddie does now, with his. But the former tamer, he would go from treating these beasts as pets and then when it was show time, encourage them to growl and reach for him with their claws. One day, the lion didn’t feel like playing anymore and so when the tamer taunted him with his head in the beast’s mouth, the lion’s jaws crushed his head. He didn’t die instantly, no, the lion dragged him to the back of the stage, drank his blood like water. By the time everyone fled and the lion was subdued, he’d devoured the man’s head and chest.”

“So what’s your point?” John realized he’d been holding his throat, subconsciously protecting it. “Is Foley going to eat me?”

Barsad mulled it over as he peeled an orange. “Yes.”

+

**September 25, 1929: Little Rock, AR**

The Robin’s new routine was in a word: Dangerous.

Aerial contortion was damn near unheard of and a risk very few would take. You could free fall or get tangled up in the ribbon, break your neck and kill yourself like the trapeze girl in Arizona did, spinning on that rope. Dangerous. And yet all Foley could see was his gypsy boy snaring him further into his inescapable magic and that was a danger that thrilled him.

The Robin was in his signature blues and blacks. There were no rings this time, no swing, no crate for contorting. He was suspended high in the air, wrapped in two black ribbons of silk. The lights out over the audience went black, the spotlights focused on John. At once his limbs stretched out and he tumbled down in a graceful descent, ribbon unraveling from his limbs, the crowd on the edge of their seats.

In Foley’s eyes, John was a poisonous spider spinning a web of lust. He was a wasp caught in that sinful web and here was John, venom pumping through his vein, limbs spread out and ready to feast.

But to Bane, John was a butterfly breaking free from a dark cocoon, or a bird from an egg. And look at how he twirled upside down, his arms and legs like wings, his hands reaching for the ground far, far below, maybe reaching for Bane. Bane remembered seeing a ballerina practicing in a park in St. Petersburg once. John’s grace would put her shame. His eyes stung with unshed tears as he watched John from his cage.

The Robin was suspended, upside down and drawing his limbs in, wrapped again in the ribbon tightly, his heart shaped ass accentuated by the lights and shadows of the stage. He arched his back, ribbon coiled around his wrist and pulling his body up and over itself into a back flip, unraveling from the ribbons again as the audience held their breath, expecting—but the Robin never touched the ground. He spun his legs and twisted his arms sensuously slow in his climb back up to the ribbons’ center. He curled forward and let the ribbon fall from his legs, silk grazing the bare skin of his ankle like a caress.

Bane didn’t dare touch his bars, but knew that what he really wanted, watching John’s body move, watching the sweat on his back and neck shimmer in the stage lights, he wanted to touch, to remember or perhaps to learn what it was like to praise porcelain with his coarse hands, how to touch without breaking.

Foley wiped the sweat off his brow, forgetting his whip and his usual circle of the stage floor. There was no backstage, there was no audience, his vision tunneled to the devil twirling overhead.

John pulled up the silk, enveloping himself in a cocoon of black like an omen of death, Foley’s death should his heart be unable to handle the sight of John’s slender leg slip from behind one ribbon and snake around the other, like a burlesque girl peeking from behind a curtain.

His hands loosened their grip, he tumbled again, spinning near violently by the unraveling silk, like being tossed around by a ferociously passionate lover. And then to spin and pull himself back up, climbing that ribbon with a hunger and purpose, like he was climbing a… Foley clinched his fist around the handle of his whip and swallowed. He couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t watch anymore for risk of embarrassing himself.

Bane closed his eyes against the uproarious applause from the crowds, overwhelmed by the beating of his own heart. In all his years he had never felt more broken than he did now, unable to remember, to sculpt and form the words, to simply tell John that he was beautiful.

+

The stars lit up the night sky when John slipped past the tent flap. He watched Barsad nearly fall out of Bane’s cage in his drunkenness.

When he spotted John he tried to stand up straighter. His eyes had serious bags under them. John urged him to sit on a haystack. “Bane has tried to break out of the cage twice tonight, John. You shouldn’t be here,” the man slurred.

John looked over at Bane and wished he hadn’t. He was resting in a casual position, legs wide and arms folded behind his back, observing John and Barsad. The bulge in his trousers was as obvious as the bulge of his arms, his chest. It didn’t seem possible, but whenever a show went exceptionally well for the strongman, Bane’s dominance and presence radiated from him even behind those bars. John forgot how to breathe and why it was imporant until Barsad tried to push past him and stand up.

John pushed him back down with a gentle tap, letting the man’s inebriation do the rest. “When is the last time you slept? Or ate?”

“No time, John. If Bane gets out of the cage—”

“He won’t. I’ll watch him. Sleep, Barsad. Go sleep in your bed.”

He shook his head, exhaustion made him look like a corpse.

John tugged his arm. “Come on, you can’t stay like this forever, you’ll collapse first, and what would Ms. Mabel think? Who would take care of Bane then?” He crossed his arms when Barsad still refused.

It couldn’t be too hard to watch Bane. He looked relaxed enough to handle himself and… well… John was staring again. Bane stared back.

Well, John would just have to keep him company until Barsad regained his wits.

He had to wrestle the flask from Barsad’s hands. “Tell you what, if I can carry you out of here to your trailer then you’re going to sleep. Deal?”

Barsad snorted, looking John over. “I don’t weigh as much as Bane, but I would still break your back.”

“Then let’s see you prove me wrong.” It was easy for most people to look at John and forget that he propelled himself through the air and over his head with just the strength in his arms on a nightly basis.

He tucked his head under Barsad’s arm, his shoulder blades nestled into the man’s ribs. He grabbed his arm and legs and lifted him off the haystack. John’s trek across the tent to the opening was slow and careful. Barsad huffed with surprise but made no other comment. Which was why John had to stop and turn around when he heard a strange nose coming from behind him. Even Barsad lifted his head.

Bane’s eyes were bright, his shoulders and chest heaving more and more as he watched John and Barsad, his bubbling laughter hard and scratched after so many years collecting dust. It reminded John of the sound cars made when they crashed into one another, though coming from Bane, it was oddly endearing.

John nearly dropped Barsad on his head when Bane’s laugh become infectious, even Barsad chuckled. “I hope you’re not so drunk that you forget this in the morning,” John groaned, feeling the man’s weigh tax his joints.

It was quiet on their end of the fairgrounds though shouting and music drifted over from the stage workers’ celebration in the mess hall. He managed to open the trailer door with his boot heel and dumped Barsad on the rumpled bed falling and landing almost on top of him.

Barsad was still chuckling low when John rose up on his elbows.

“Feel better,” he asked. It was the first time he ever really saw the man smile and he was sure it wasn’t all moonshine.

Barsad lifted a heavy hand and cupped the side of John’s face. His eyes were already drifting closed. “Thank you, John.”

“Thank me when you wake up in the morning and I’m still alive,” he grinned but his happiness dampened a bit when he looked around the trailer. It was mostly empty save for bottles and a rifle he was sure was meant for Bane. The man had no enemies and made no effort to befriend anyone, save for perhaps Ms. Mabel, if he could ever get up the courage – and be sober enough – to actually court her.

John pulled off Barsad’s boots and tucked a pillow behind his head. A photo of a woman John supposed was his wife was hidden in the pillowcase. He sighed and tucked him under a blanket.

He felt bad, he was sure this was only going to give God another handful of reasons to damn him to hell, but…

He put fruit in the bowl he’d seen Barsad give Bane before. And a little can of salve. If John was anything, he certainly wasn’t one to shy away from the hopeful prospect of what could happen when he joined Bane back in the tent. He would probably chicken out if Bane wasn’t too shy, and maybe it wouldn’t even get that far, but if it did, he wouldn’t be a fool. He’d be prepared.

Bane sat up when John returned. It was a bit intimidating for both of them being here without their chaperone. If Bane could just remember to relax, but it was impossible. John walked forward all of the angel once more and it twisted Bane's heart into an uncomfortable knot.

“So what’s this I hear about you trying to break free without me? We have to be a team if we want to be successful.” He and the bowl carefully slipped past the bars. John sat it to the side and knelt in front of the other man, a little smirk playing at his face when Bane’s eyes on him never wavered.

He reached forward but Bane caught his wrist just before he could touch the muzzle. It was like he’d buried his hands in wet cement and let it dry, Bane’s grip was honestly terrifying, but Bane wasn’t angry, just scared.

“Big tough guy like you, just as vain as I am. I like it.” John moved closer on his knees, dwarfed under Bane’s massive presence. “Hey,” he breathed low, just for Bane though no one else was around to hear. “Barsad would never let me near you if he didn’t trust me, and I trust you, so…” Bane’s grip softened but he didn’t let go. “And you’ll get ants, bees, wasps too, in this muzzle if you try to eat all this sugar through the grill.” He smiled when Bane’s eyebrows rose in amusement. He tugged John’s hands behind him bowing his head so John could see how to unfasten the clasps.

John had to take his face in hand when Bane wouldn’t look him in the eye. He ran his thumbs in circles under Bane’s ears. “Let me see you. There we go. You’re not so scary without that thing on your face.” He smiled, finally getting the chance to see Bane smile.

He could understand why the man had reservations about others seeing him like this. Bane had pulled at John’s heart when his mouth was covered in porridge but now, up-close, John couldn’t possibly begin to understand the kind of agony Bane must have lived through. Only a small corner of what John assumed must have been devilishly plump lips were in tact on the left side of his mouth. Most of his teeth and gums were visible, particularly where the flesh near the bottom of his right cheek was missing and scarred open, allowing his saliva to slip out of his mouth when he wasn't paying attention to it. Even his tongue was marred, short and dark from being bitten into one too many times. He hadn’t pulled his jaw off but he’d been damn near successful.

Bane placed his hands carefully on John’s waist as if the man would crumble under any harder a touch. He enjoyed having John in his hands, but there was more, and John didn’t seem disinclined to Bane’s handling when he lifted him upward, encouraging him to take the bars overhead.

John hooked his legs in the top bars and swung upside down. “This isn’t as easy to do with boots on, or pants,” he laughed. He did a few lazy flips and arched up, his back bending and twisting. He finally climbed out of the top bars and perch on them long enough to pull off his boots. Bane watched him in a trance, awed by such grace and skill even though John was hardly trying.

John heard Bane move but didn’t register until his hand brushed the back of his neck sending sparks down his spine. He twisted around to see Bane and almost fell to the ground when Bane’s feather touch tickled him into a fit of giggles. He tried to right himself but Bane’s hands were there at his waist again, turning and lowering him flush into the man’s lap. It was a much bolder move than John had anticipated and it turned him on much easier than it should have. He always hated being manhandled. _Used_ to, rather.

Although it could have strictly been the fact that John was nestled on top of the brick in Bane’s pants.

To be fair, he hadn’t expected any less from a man as sturdy and massive as Bane. His own body shivered and grew hot. Bane was hard for him, looking into John’s eyes ready to devour him, but he was holding back, waiting for John’s permission.

He ran his hands over the hills and valleys of Bane’s arms and traps to his neck. His hands couldn’t wrap around it at all and yet Bane’s hands nearly touched wrapped around John’s waist. It was the same for Bane’s chest. John couldn’t get enough of touching him, feeling the power rippling just under such soft skin.

Bane watched John explore. He was amazed that such a beautiful man was so enthralled. He wanted, trusted, that if he just…pressed his mouth to John’s cheek maybe he wouldn’t flinch away. He begged John silently not to run. Bane’s nose against John’s face, he still smelled faintly of the powder he used to protect his hands during the shows. John pulled back but not the way Bane had expected. His head tilted back seemingly of its own accord, like Bane had found some special spot to poke at with his nose that made John’s back arch and offer his neck.

John’s lips touched his, kissed their way around his scars, his chin and under his nose, and for a moment Bane remembered so many things, so many wonderful things, like fresh rain in Africa and the tulips in Amsterdam. There was clarity in John’s kiss.

John groaned painfully and gripped Bane’s wrists, pulling back. “Bane, you’re crushing me. Shit,” he gritted out. “Please stop.”

Bane quickly let go. John collapsed on his back hugging his ribs with a grimace. He pulled his shirt out of his pants. He was fucked if even one rib was broken, but he poked and prodded, his head thumping back on the ground with relief. “Well,” he sighed, “That was fun, huh?”

He propped up on his elbows. Bane was sitting back against the bars, looking spooked, as if he’d killed John.

“Hey, come back. I’m not done with you yet.” Bane eased over as John sat up, keeping his hands near the bars on either side of them. It would normally be a warning, but John saw the longing in Bane’s eyes. He needed to touch _something_ other than John so he wouldn’t hurt him again.

“Don’t do that. Come here,” John’s soft voice released some of the tension in Bane’s shoulders.

He resumed his spot on Bane’s lap and took one of his hands, guiding it under his shirt. Bane’s touch was so hesitant, timid but John simply took his other hand and guided it as well to rub circles over his stomach and down his side, mindful of the darkening bruises over his ribcage. Bane’s eyes followed his hands as John unbuttoned his shirt and let it slip from his shoulders with his suspenders.

Bane touched his arm and smiled, cheeky enough to make John swat him away. “I carried Barsad, I’m strong enough even if I can’t crush bowling balls, thank you very much.” He flexed his lean muscles just for show. Bane’s shoulders shook in a silent laugh, teasing John.

Only the pad of Bane’s fingers grazed his chest making John snort. “That tickles. Cut it out.” But Bane touched the spot again, curiosity painting his face. “I bet you’ve got spots too.” He tickled one side of his neck and had to snap back his fingers quickly before they got crushed by Bane’s shoulder when he jerked it up, that same scratchy unused laugh accompanying John’s. Bane’s face was quite sinister when he smiled, but John kissed him again and pulled his hands around so that they fanned out over his back. He was fully encased now in Bane’s strength. He felt like a swooning schoolgirl though the erection he sat on made this anything but innocent.

Bane moved suddenly and John found himself on his back with those powerful arms caging him in, those hands so much bigger than his face. He curled his hands around bane’s wrists and arched up his spine so that his stomach brushed his. Bane dropped his hips down, startling a moan from John’s lips.

John nearly came in his pants when Bane growled into his mouth. John yanked at Bane’s pants and almost flinched when his heavy cock fell out onto his lap.

He unbuttoned his own pants and slid them down, grinning at the odd look on Bane’s face as if the man had never seen boxers before, and maybe he hadn’t. Either way Bane wasn’t impressed and tore them off into a little heap by the bars. John was positively swooning now and died when Bane took his cock in his hand and applied the barest of pressure to his head.

Bane liked seeing John squirm almost as much as watching John play with his cage. The thought struck him again, he wanted to tell John that he was beautiful, but didn’t know how. And with John’s hands stroking his cock his brain was even slower to work than normal.

John reached for the bowl and collected the salve but paused when Bane pressed his nose to his heart. It was tender and sweet. John believed that he could love this man, that Bane could love him too. He stretched his legs out and over his head, his feet resting on the bars behind him, only getting them out of the way but Bane’s open stare was better than any sex he could remember. He dipped one of his fingers and Bane’s into the jar and eased his into his body. Bane’s, held in John’s hand, slipped in next, the stretch and friction electrifying. Bane curled his finger on accident but did it again when John nearly screamed out in rapture. He was fascinated by how small and compact John was. He knew what was coming but knew his strength better than any man save perhaps his handler. He would kill John if he were to stay on top of him.

He pulled John up and onto his lap but John kept pushing until Bane was on his back. He added another of Bane’s fingers spreading him close to his limit. Bane’s free hand roamed over John’s skin wherever he could reach, but it only relaxed John so much. He figured a little pain and suffering was his due for taking advantage of Barsad’s absence.

He slicked Bane, bracing himself. His body refused to give without a fight no matter how well he prepared and Bane didn’t seem to understand that keeping his fingers inside of John would only make taking him more difficult. That look was back in his eyes, more ferocious than it had ever been. John knew he was a heartbeat away from being claimed by a beast, a thoroughbred amongst strongmen and his body was entirely at the mercy of this man. Bane growled again when the head of his cock disappeared into John as the man rocked his hips from above and relaxed in increments, slow agonizing increments. Bane gripped the bars behind him making John shiver, his body take more when the metal creaked and groaned.

Each breath out of John was like a purr and a lion’s rumble from Bane. John couldn’t get enough of his voice. He lay his hands flat on the barrel chest under him and rock forward and up, down and back, his spine aching and his legs trembling until Bane mashed that spot within him. He worked his hips over that spot again and again, and nearly collapsed when Bane gave an experimental thrust upward. He was pleased by John’s reaction and did it again, drawing louder melodies from John's lips. He wanted to touch him again, feel him burn under his hands but he didn’t trust his strength, he couldn’t hurt John. And he could see John’s strength clearly now the way his abs contracted when his hips rose, feeling the tight clench of his body upward, and the sweat rolling down his lean chest over taunt little nipples.

He took a risk and touched one little pebble and thrust up again. John nearly bent over backwards so Bane’s other arm wrapped around his back to keep him upright. His touch was firmer now that he knew John wasn’t glass. He wanted to close his eyes and focus on the sounds but seeing John move, his eyes rake over Bane with hunger and touch himself, it wrung his release from the depths of his soul, it was blinding, feeling John’s heat spasm around him, feel that warm release on his stomach and chest when John's world crumbled soon after.

John kept Bane inside him as he buried his head in the man’s neck, heaving just as much as Bane. His hands lightly touched John’s back from his neck to his hips and back again. They couldn’t fall asleep like this, and it destroyed John to even think of leaving Bane here and trekking back across the grounds in the dark to his lonely bed.

He had to wiggle out of Bane’s arms or else the man wouldn’t let him move away. He tucked Bane in and redressed, the slickness between his legs more a trophy now than a nuisance like it normally was. Bane watched him put on his boots, totally adoration in his eyes.

John’s face lit up in a lazy, tired smile and he climbed back on top of Bane kissing his face and rubbing his chest.

What he wouldn’t give to hear Bane speak, to say anything.

But when he touched John’s face, his lips, it was promise enough for the night.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can NOT believe this is over with so quickly! I feel like I only just started this fic yesterday. It's been quite an experience.
> 
> Thank you all for the loves, the kudos, the comments, everything! You are all my stars! 
> 
> [side note: I don't have a 'beta(?)' for my work, so all typos will be hunted down and killed wherever I see them (so if this gets updated ten million times within the next day or so, I'm sorry. I'm little dyslexic, I try).]
> 
> Again, thanks to everyone who enjoyed this fic. I certainly enjoyed writing it!
> 
> ... Now onto the next project! And Goliath! 
> 
> \--From your wilderness pal, Bear. <3
> 
> UPDATE: This chapter's been extended. (again, thanks so much for your feedback, curiousloveable)
> 
> UPDATE-UPDATE: Not over yet, the last chapter is the next one. XD

 

+

John stayed rubbing Bane’s stomach until the man fell asleep on top of Ms. Mabel’s blanket. John watched his bare chest rise and fall peacefully wishing he could sleep too, wrapped up in those arms. He eased through the bar and gingerly stepping down off the tire.

All was quiet, the lamps here and there nearly burnt out.

He walked a few paces in the warm, humid night air, hugging his ribs and assessing all the sore parts of his body now that his high was over. He would sell the breeches off his ass right now for a long soak in a hot bath. But he’d give even more just to be able to stay in Bane’s glorious warmth.

“You got quite a set a pipes on you, little birdie,” the lion tamer said low from his perch under the tree, lighting a cigar. He walked over when John stopped.

“You know I watch your shows and think, ‘boy he could have been a ballerina or something.’ And I’m on my way across camp from fussing over my big cats and hear you in there singing and now I’m thinking you’d do well in a opera too,” he smirked around his cigar.

“Eddie, is it?” At his nod, John kept walking. “Right, thanks. Good night, Eddie.”

“Oi, not so fast. Don’t you want somebody to walk you home? It’s awfully dark, and the stage boys are feeling particularly randy now that Alfred’s birthday’s over and they’re all drunk. You know he turned seventy-three today? Old fucker.”

John’s brow furrowed, looking around, his nerves peaking, and then at Eddie. “Not sure that would help. You’re nearly as small as I am.”

Eddie stepped back, feigning offense. John watched him, still not sure of what was happening anymore. They were walking together like old friends.

Eddie smiled and extended his elbow like a proper gentlemen, even as he spit on the ground again when John took his arm. He puffed on his cigar as they walked in silence. John noticed that Eddie tilted his head away when he exhaled, mindful not to blow smoke in John’s face.

“So,” the lion tamer said at last, “You and Bane.” He mulled it over and shivered, “Fucking hell, little birdie, how did that happen?”

John shrugged. He didn’t know himself.

Eddie whistled, blonde curls whipping across his face in the wind. “Fuck me, John. That’s… Oh, poor, poor Foley. Jesus I love it. I’m guessing he has no clue, right? And what excuse do you have when he’s banging on your door in tears, wondering where his little gypsy boy’s been?”

It was John’s turn to shiver, repulsed. “Maybe some time apart will help him understand that he doesn’t own me.”

“Oh but he does, little birdie. Mr. Wayne’s not getting rid of him; he brings in the crowds. He’s got all of us in his pocket. You, me, the girl with the fucking twin sticking out of her head, everybody. Even Bane. You ought to be grateful that you’re the best at what you do, because the only thing separating you from them other trapeze boys is they actually got to fight to keep their jobs, so they stand on their heads and let him fuck them—They don’t run off and fuck  _Bane_ , of all bloody people. You must be built out of something tough, fancying that juggernaut.” He was teasing John, and being a jerk, but he was, to John’s surprise, actually tolerable to be around.

“You won’t here when the old lion tamer got turned into cat food, was you,” Eddie continued, “That fucking Gordon had it coming. You can’t share your bed with beasts, so to speak—Well, I suppose…You found a way didn’t you?” He winced when John avoided his eyes. “How does a boy like you even fit a man like him, huh? A little overly fond of baseball when you was younger or something? Don’t tell me he don’t got a cock in them trousers the size of a fucking anvil. I mean this is a circus and stranger things can happen, but that, I won’t believe.”

John couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m flexible, remember? I do impossible things all day for a living.”

“Jesus Christ…” Eddie openly stared back in awe. He whistled again, gravel crunching under their feet as they walked. “I saw it once. He and his Russian were with some of us taking baths in a big creek off the Missouri. Fuck me, that thing was bigger than my alpha’s cock and that lion weights over six-and-a-half-hundred pounds.”

John’s face grew hot. “So what made you want to play with ferocious cats for a living,” John asked.

Eddie shrugged, “Me dad used to hunt rhinos and killed lions for an ego boost. One of them lions got the better of him and ate that fucker. They been my first love ever since,” he answered fondly. “Except for old Solomon. He’s the one who ate Gordon. Thought they’d put him down. I’d been training them for a couple of months with him trying to claw at me before I found out what he’d done. They let a beast kill a man and live. If I could I’d have taken him back to the tents and shot him myself after he done this.” He lifted up his shirt from out of his pants showing John the long angry healing marks up his abdomen. “John, Foley gave me a untamable lion that almost got me killed. I’ll get him back for this, one day—Hang on a second, come here.” He wrapped his arm over John’s shoulders suddenly as they passed by the mess hall tent, John’s arms around Eddie’s waist, Eddie’s face close to his.

No one outside the tent paid them much notice when they recognized Eddie, all of them mostly passed out and bleary-eyed in the grass. Eddie eased off, taking John’s arm again once they were in the clear.

Eddie talked and talked about whatever came to mind, keeping John company and shit-talking everyone they passed. John listened politely, liking his odd presence and content to let his mind wander back to Bane.

They stopped outside of John’s trailer as the wind picked up again.

Now was the time for John to panic. He had Foley, maybe hopefully sleeping, at his back and Eddie at his front. He still wasn’t entirely sure what the man’s motive was. People around here didn’t just do things for others without wanting something.

“Well, little birdie, it’s the end of the road.” Eddie stretched and looked John over. “G’night.” He turned to leave.

“Whoa, wait.” John stammered. “That’s…”

He snorted. “Don’t tell me you want me to tuck you in. Oh no, Bane’s got no reason to hurt me and I’d like to keep it that way.”

John stared, floored. “Thanks… Eddie, can I ask you a question, about when—”

“About that day with that old greasy fuck Alfred and the tent boys?”

John nodded.

“Well you just did, and I only agreed to answer that one question so that’s all you get.”

He rolled his eyes and turned to open the door of his trailer, but Eddie caught his arm. “I was just… Look, you surprised me. You’re a good kid, is all. No way would I have done that for anyone, not even if me mum was in a cage getting rained on. Even if seeing Alfred’s old wrinkly prick didn’t majorly turn me off, it’s not fair to take advantage of you like that. Plus since I know now why you did it, I’m definitely happy I didn’t touch you. Bane’s the last fucker on this earth I’d ever want to piss off.”

John offered a little grin, feeling a weight lift his shoulders he’d never noticed before. “Thank you, I suppose, but then… what’s all this for?”

Eddie sighed, his smile disappeared. He glanced from John to the ground to Foley’s trailer and stepped into John’s personal space with a predatory stride. He used his height to keep John moving backward until he had him flush against the side of his trailer. His arms went up on either side of John’s head, he leaned in. And snorted, voice low in John’s ear. "Only man who cares for Foley is Foley. I’m just shuffling my cards.” He winked.

John tried to fight back his knowing grin but failed. It was a bold move but the tamer didn’t seem particularly worried about getting roughed up by the stage workers or fired should Foley and the others actually catch him outside of John’s trailer like this.

When he nudged Eddie off the man stepped back, his eyes alight with mirth. “Good night, my darling sweet John,” he curtsied, taking on a comically pompous accent. “I do so enjoy these midnight walks around the grounds.” He spit on one of Foley’s trailer tires as he walked off. 

+

**October 1, 1929: Jackson, MS**

Bane’s face was getting sore from smiling so much.

“How does that feel here? Good?” He could feel the tension in his neck releasing.

John was perfect. John was giving him a deep back rub on Ms. Mabel’s blanket in the cage while his handler napped on the haystacks.

Bane’s show tonight had been longer than usual but no less enjoying. His muscles ached in a very satisfying way, reminding him of his better boxing matches in the past. Oh, if only John could have seen him then.

The smaller man straddled his hips, rubbing circles into Bane’s lower back. He kissed a line across Bane’s traps, mapped Bane’s most expansive scar with his fingers. John had to throw every ounce of weight he had, a point that amused and warmed Bane, into coaxing the knots out of his back and shoulders.

Bane’s muzzle was off again, forgotten in a corner though sometimes he wished he could keep it on. It still amazed Bane how receptive John was to him without his muzzle. He wanted to kiss Bane on the mouth, always. Bane let him, even though it didn’t make him feel good anymore. Not being able to meet John’s lips or tongue with a matching pair made Bane feel as if he kissed John behind a thick sheet of glass, unable to reach through.

What he really liked was kissing John with his fingertips and his nose instead. Bane loved touching John’s stomach in particular and the way it made John blush.

He remembers happiness as a child though he cannot remember moments like this one as a man, not before John. He couldn’t, would never, admit to Barsad how much that terrified him.

Barsad seemed to understand this, however, though nothing he did succeeded in calming Bane whenever he wanted John and John wasn’t there. If he could keep John in his sight, near, safe, then he wouldn’t break things so much.

He wanted to touch John now. He rose up on his knees with the idea suddenly, but was embarrassed that he’d forgotten John was sitting on him when he heard a thud and John’s surprised grunt behind him.

John rubbed his own shoulder, in a heap where Bane had dropped him. Even Barsad had startled awake expecting that the worst had happened. He reached for his flask before remembering that John hid all his alcohol. “You keep dropping John on his head like that and his memory will be as shit as yours,” the handler muttered before dozing off again.

Bane cursed his own clumsiness. Barsad was right; no way would John let him touch him now.

“Hey, it’s okay,” John tried not to wince when he sat up and rolled his shoulder.

Bane wasn’t convinced. John always came to the tent without blemish and always left bruised somewhere and in some form of pain.

“You just got to be more careful next time, okay? No big deal.”

Bane wasn’t convinced of that either. Something about John just made him lose himself. He was Bane's angel, and Bane knew he wasn't a real angel, but it was hard to remember that sometimes, that he was breakable. But he would try to be gentler. Had to.

He picked John up and placed him on his lap like a doll, freeing John's shirt from his pants. His hand carefully petted John’s stomach. An apologetic kiss that quickly progressed into something deeper when he touched his chest. He wanted to mount John, rut him like he had this morning when his handler was away bathing, but John was already moving around a little stiffly and had practice tomorrow that he couldn’t be out of shape for.

His eyes danced around John’s face until he kissed Bane, taking Bane’s hands in his, massaging his palms. “I wish…” John shook his head.

Bane knew what he wanted.

The truth was, Bane _could_ speak, he just didn’t know how. And his handler always talked to him as if there had been a time when Bane could speak and did. Sometimes he would be with John and a word would be on the tip of his short tongue and just as suddenly vanish. It just didn’t make sense. Everyone else spoke. Why couldn’t he?

He feared that he would soon grow to dislike moments like this as well, just sitting and holding John. There were times for sex, times for sleeping, and times for other things that didn’t require talking. This, he understood, was the time for people to talk about things, and John talked to him as if he expected, hoped, that one day Bane would answer. So he would encourage John to play with his cage more instead, avoiding it, even after the shows when John was tired though he never refused Bane. Bane liked watching him, liked sex; those things didn’t demand more than he could give.

Bane was lost in thought and it took him a while to notice that John wasn’t speaking now or kissing his mouth again. His fingers grazed over Bane’s stomach in circles and his nose rubbed with just enough pressure over Bane’s cheek and neck. Bane couldn’t believe it.

“I can see why you like this so much,” his whispered, his nose touching Bane’s with a smile.

John was perfect. John was learning to speak Bane’s language.

+

**October 3, 1929: Greenville, MS**

Try as John might, he couldn’t stop his joy from blossoming when Barsad walked into the tent one evening while Bane watched John play with his cage.

John nearly fell on his head. Barsad’s face was washed, hair combed, his eyes clear, and his beard trimmed into a nice even shadow. John rushed over and fixed the man’s tie and straightened out his worn jacket. “You look great.” He chuckled when Barsad glared back. “Going to help Ms. Mabel carry in her pails of water, huh?”

Barsad glanced past him at Bane, trusting him in John’s care, but after so many years, he doubted he’d ever stop worrying. When he was away from his brother anything could happen and Barsad wasn’t a fan of ‘anything.’ Too many unknown variables.

“Hey, we’ll be fine,” John assured him, “You go and have a good time, and relax. I’ll keep him busy.”

Barsad’s frown turned into a sour grimace. “I’m sure you will. Please replace my salve when you finish and tell me no more of this.”

“Deal.” John watched Barsad’s nervously tense back retreat from the tent.

He turned, eyeing Bane through mischievous eyes as he took off his boots and suspenders and tossed them on a haystack. Bane sat up like a puppy knowing he was about to get a treat, unclasping his dripping muzzle with quick hands.

+

Bane’s favorite thing in the whole world was John’s private shows for him in the cage.

John couldn’t move about the cage bars as freely in his leisure clothes, he'd told Bane once, so he would take them off beforehand whenever he and Bane were alone. He’d also stopped wearing those odd undergarments after Bane tore up several pairs.

Bane wondered if he could get John to cease wearing clothes all together if he could just tear up those as well.

+

John’s mouth fell open with a long moan of content when his body finally let Bane in, his skin on fire under Bane’s steel grip on his hips.

He loved Bane the most when he took John on his knees. It never failed to set off something primal in Bane, as if his mind could not fathom any other matter except the need to thoroughly claim John as his in these moments. Bane also seemed to salivate more when John knelt before him.

The thought stole John’s breath away, hands grasping the bars and holding on through the earthquake of Bane’s rutting with a corner of the blanket between his teeth, Bane’s low rumble sending shivers up his spine.

It was a delicious compromise; Bane could take control and not worry about crushing John and although John missed seeing Bane’s face he knew the man was far less self-conscious about his appearance this way.

John had grown to love the decorations of thumb-sized bruises on his hips and waist, the dull, quiet ache in his most private places when he stretched during his exercises or contorted on stage just so. The past week had truly been heaven.

He would have to remember to go into town tomorrow and bring Ms. Mabel flowers or the kind of pie she loved, though after tonight if things went well with Barsad, she might just bring John one herself.

+

**October 5, 1929: Memphis, TN**

After months of persevering, Foley was finally making progress with John.

Anyone else would laugh, dismiss it, but Foley knew. 

It was sunny this afternoon. One of the trapeze boys with dark brown hair was blowing him under the table as Foley wrote in his journal when John knocked on his door.

“John,” he greeted, completely surprised and grateful that he’d put on one of his more finer robes and slippers. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

John smiled courteously. It faltered when he peeked behind Foley’s arm on the doorway and saw the other boy looking miserable. “Oh,” he’d paused, “I didn’t know you had company. I wouldn’t have interrupted—”

“Nonsense, sweetheart, Theodore was just leaving.” He’d glanced back at the boy inside with rage in his eyes. How dare he fucking ruin this moment? How dare he?

“Oh no, Mr. Foley, that’s fine. I was just curious on why Bane was in a cage, is all.”

Foley waved his hand dismissively. “He’s a monster. You’re safe with him locked up. Now why do you come i—”

“Well I was only wondering if Bane could have some time out of the cage every once in a while. He can’t be that bad, can he? He just looks so lonely cooped up in there while me, Mr. Barsad, and Ms. Mabel get to stretch our legs, you know?”

Foley turned his nose up like he’d seen a roach. “Sweetheart,” he condescended, “Why are you spending time with _those_ people,” but he caught himself when that only made John frown more. “I mean, of course, why not? I’ll let that ogre have its recess.” He smiled. “Okay?”

And then it happened. John smiled back at him as if Foley was Jesus himself about to offer up a blessing, and said, “Thank you. I really appreciate it,” before walking off.

It would seem innocent enough to anyone else, but Foley knew.

He was finally in.

+

John loved the new lineup. His set was right before intermission, giving him ample time to breath and relax before Bane’s show.

He sat in his dressing room cleaning blood and powder from his hands. He’d run into the lion tamer on his way backstage and had surprised even himself when he’d stopped to help bandage up the Brit’s arm. The same lion that had killed Gordon was still in Eddie’s set and still, the tamer fussed, hungry for human blood. The beast had tried to bring him down in the cages the second he'd turned his back.

He put down his towel and buried his face in his hands, distracted. Several people knew now that he spent a great deal of time with Bane. Three people had told him about the old lion tamer, as if they knew no other metaphors. Eddie told him, as John bandaged his wounds, that this was an omen for courting Bane’s fire.

They didn’t get it, John wasn’t afraid; he had no reason to be. Bane was clumsy with his strength but had proved to be the only man John had ever pined for who treated him kindly, who pampered him with affection without expecting anything in return, and had eyes only for him. Most men weren’t even half of Bane’s size and they terrified John, _they_ hurt John. Bane was different. Bane was…

Well he was…

John dropped his hands and startled to see Foley move pass the curtain separating his room from John’s. He eyed him in the mirror, his expression blank. “Can I help you?” John tried for polite though he’d used up his reserves outside of Foley’s tent that afternoon.

“Why yes John, I think you can. I’m not intruding, am I?”

It was the same thing he always said when he’d stand outside of John’s trailer trying to get in. John sighed, resting his hands in his lap though one covertly moved to touch the knife hidden just under his chair. “No sir, of course not. Come in.” That was funny, he was already in.

Foley stepped behind John’s chair, his hands resting like hot coals on John’s shoulders. “I always wonder how you boys get out of these costumes on your own. It must be annoying, all these buttons. Here, let me help.”

John swallowed, still glaring at the man through the mirror but he doubted if Foley noticed. His fingers toyed with the knife handle as he felt the buttons down his back come open, baring his shoulders and spine.

“Gorgeous,” Foley whispered his praise, slipping the fabric down John's arms. “Very, very soft. Just like I imagined.”

John’s panic spiked when Foley’s jaw twitched. One of Bane’s thumbprints was under John’s left nipple.

Foley tsked, rubbing his shoulders, his back, his throat. John often felt breathless when Bane touched him like this. Now, all he felt was drowning, suffocating, his chest burning under the struggle to stay calm.

“You know John, I’ve always been a man loose with my morals and it’s cost me. I’m sure you know plenty about my unforgivable reputation here.”

John blinked back tears and shook his head. “What reputation?”

“Oh, don’t play dumb, I know trapeze boys talk, and I’m sure you have questions about that boy in my trailer this afternoon. Listen John, I want to do right by you. You’re special John, you always have been. As much as I want you, need you, I want you to see me as a gentleman first. I want us to start over fresh.” He continued when John blinked in response. “I can tell you’re a boy with simple taste and that’s fine,” he chuckled. “My attempts to spoil you in the past obviously haven’t work and I apologize if I came on too strong and scared you off before.”

John would laugh if he weren’t paralyzed with fear under Foley’s hands. He was damn sure that _this_ was worse than receiving one too many rose bouquets and jewelry. Foley had certainly never put his hands on John before. Tears stung his eyes, but he blinked them away when Foley’s lips touched his neck.

Foley’s thumb was much smaller than the bruise on John’s chest when he touched it. “No more of this John,” he said low in his ear. “You don’t have to settle. That lion tamer’s a thug. I saw you two earlier. I know. He can’t take care of you like I can, John. I’m going to prove that. I’m treating you out tonight to the best restaurant this town has to offer and I swear I won’t even touch you until you tell me you want it.” He said this even as his hand nudged John’s out of his lap and delved between his legs. John gripped the knife white knuckled. “This little taste is hardly enough for me. I want you, John. It will be a challenge, keeping my hands off, but it'll be worth it. No more boys for me, and no more Eddie for you. Okay?”

“Okay,” he breathed, staving off a panic attack with difficulty.

He forced a smile when Foley kissed his neck again and stood up. “I’ll come pick you up at our trailers as soon as the show ends. Wear some of the clothes I bought you. I want to see how good they look before I tear them off you.” He chuckled, correcting himself. “Of course, not tonight, not until you say so.”

John looked down at his hands through blurry eyes when Foley left, shaking violently, visited by the same old ghost of his past.

+

**October 7, 1929: Meridian, MS**

Foley kept his word, though the ordeal was no less than terrifying.

He hid in his bed the next day while the workers hitched his trailer and drove to the next city. He didn’t even bother dressing, didn’t bother leaving the cocoon of his sheets.

He knew his happiness couldn’t have lasted forever, but he was still shocked it had ended this quickly. He’d only just started to really connect with Bane and now… Now he had to try and find time for Bane while keeping it from Foley, had to figure out how to get back out of Foley’s line of focus, or at the least have the man _not_ fly into a near rage again like he had last night when John refused him for the third time, and John had to do all of this juggling _and_ concentrating on the ribbons tonight. If he fell on his head during his show and died, who could blame him?

He just wanted Bane. Why couldn’t that be simple, like Barsad and Ms. Mabel? Sure Barsad got picked on for courting her, but no one was trying to molest either of them.

If his mother were here, she’d know what to do. She’d tell John to bite the bullet and just bathe it off afterwards. Foley had security; he’d offered to give John an allowance. More than John made in a month he’d be getting every week. And Foley… he wasn’t completely unattractive. He was boring, yes, but…

Oh, who was John kidding? Foley wasn’t Bane. Foley didn’t make John feel like he was the last plant seed on earth, to be protected and watered, encouraged to grow into something life-sustaining. Foley’s money was his only romance, the only playable card in his deck, and it was temporary. John would be comfortable, he would retire, he would let Foley wear his ankles as earrings, and the second another younger boy came along with a smile for Foley, John would be toss aside like trash. And sure, he could save up those allowances, maybe even find Bane and pick up where they’d left off, but it had only been one night and a morning since he’d last seen Bane and already he felt off balance, empty.

And if Foley only knew just who that little bruise on his chest came from, as quick as Foley was to anger there may not be a Bane to return to.

John hated men and couldn’t understand why he was attracted to them. Now he could honestly say he felt the same about love too. This would all be so much easier without love.

+

“Holy shit…” John walked into Bane’s tent with his mouth hung open.

The cage was empty. Bane strutted around like a tiger in the lantern light, all power and presence. But his muzzle was chained to a hook in the ground much like it was on stage.

“Barsad, why—”

“Sit down before you fall down, John.” Barsad didn’t look up from shining his boots on a haystack. “Did you expect more from a leech like your boss?”

“True.” John couldn’t be angry for long; Bane did have more freedom now. It made John’s heart quicken. Bane didn’t look this big or tall on stage. He watched John sit down beside Barsad with fond eyes even as he walked laps around the length of the chain.

“Don’t worry. He’s happy enough. Aren’t you, Bane?”

John hummed in agreement. He could always just take off Bane’s muzzle later. He played with a piece of straw near his knee. He wanted to touch Bane. He was sure the man had to be at least six-and-a-half feet tall. He would dwarf John, hell he could pick John up and parade him on his shoulder like a trophy for Christ’s sake. _This_ was the man Barsad had talked about, this was the Bane who’d killed a grizzly bear.

John was nearly entranced under Bane’s eyes. He moved to stand but Barsad caught his suspenders and kept him sitting. John didn’t need to look at Barsad’s face to know he was in trouble. “I know what you’re going to say and believe me,” he whispered when Bane moved to the far side of the tent to lift weights, “It’s not what you think.”

Barsad raised his brow but still didn’t look at John.

It hurt John more than anything. He felt ashamed, dirty, unworthy to sit in this tent. “What did you hear, Barsad? Whatever it is, it’s not true.”

“Oh yeah? For how long,” he whispered low. “How long will it be untrue? I know you John, perhaps more than any man on these grounds. You are reckless, stupid even, with your body. Was it your mouth again? More than that?”

“No,” he hissed. “I only asked him. That was it.”

“Really? Bane gets a hook and chain in the floor and you don’t show up to see him all night and all morning. Explain how that works. Humor me."

John's face burned, he tried to come up with an explanation that wouldn't make him cry again and failed. “Alright fine. I screwed up, okay? I went to his trailer. I would have refused if he’d asked anything from me, but he didn’t. I just asked him and he said yes and that was it. I thought it would end there. He didn’t come after me until later. I panicked. You’re right, okay? I’m stupid.”

Barsad put down the boots and rubbed his face. He hadn’t looked this tired or unhappy in days.

John gripped the straw in his hands, needing an anchor before he dared to ask. “Can I see Bane now? Please?”

Barsad looked at John for the first time, void of emotion save for the tinge of pain in his eyes. “No.”

The foundation under John’s feet cracked. “No? Barsad I—”

“I said no. I warned you, did I not? Now say goodbye to Bane and go home.”

It was John’s turn to keep Barsad seated now. “Barsad, please. I’ll quit, I’ll tell Foley the truth, I’ll sell everything I have and buy Bane’s contract, _anything_. Please don’t do this. Please.”

Barsad studied his empty hands and then Bane who’d stopped exercising and was looking at John again, curious and confused by John’s tears. Barsad’s eyes bore into John, silently fuming. “Did you let him fuck you,” he whispered. “Then when is he going to?”

John shook his head quickly. “He’s giving me the choice. I haven’t said yes. I won’t ever say yes. I swear.”

“He’ll kill you before allowing you to make a fool out of him much longer. Or perhaps he’ll kill my brother and I will not let that happen. So, say good night to Bane and go to Foley. Fuck him, don’t fuck him, that’s up to you, but you can’t let him know that you come here.” Bane took a step forward. “Do you want to explain to him what’s happened and break him, or are you going to tell him you’re tired and have to go home early? For his sake, I would rather the latter.”

John had no leverage here. He could only nod in agreement, wiping his face. He got up on shaky legs, afraid they wouldn’t carry him forward let alone all the way back to his trailer.

He was right, Bane was much larger standing in person. John pressed his cheek to Bane’s chest, committing to memory the way his knees weakened under the weight of Bane’s arms when they wrapped around him, circling him in a small, warm heaven. He was nosing John’s hair, worry and confusion in his eyes.

John stepped back and glanced at Barsad who was back to shining his shoes. “I can’t stay tonight Bane. I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t be more sorry, but I’m just not feeling right with the weather. Okay? Maybe tomorrow.” He stepped back again but Bane followed. It shattered his heart. “Good night, Bane.”

“Bane,” Barsad called from the haystack. “Fetch me that towel, please.”

Bane’s hand cupped John’s face, his eyes still blissfully happy. John nipped the pad of his thumb, making him smile more when he turned for Barsad’s errand.

It was enough of a distraction and John knew he wouldn’t get another one. The tent flap swung closed behind him.

He remembered walking this road back when he’d left Bane sleeping in the cage their first night together, hugging his ribs after Bane squeezed him too hard accidentally. That hadn’t hurt nearly as much as this.

+

**October 10, 1929: Birmingham, AL**

“Those are mighty fine clothes, John,” Ms. Mabel smiled from under her lace umbrella. “Have you met Amelia? Isn’t she just a darling in this dress?”

John grinned from the doorway of his trailer, welcoming the women inside with their half empty crate of lemonade jars. “Thank you, ma’am, and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Amelia. Your tattoos are very nice.”

“And how are you, John?” Ms. Mabel’s smile faltered a bit when she sat at the small table. “It’s been so long since I’d seen you on our side of the Big Tent. And you know Mr. Barsad barely talks anyways. Getting that man to say more than a handful of words at once, well, I might as well start pulling teeth behind my trailer for extra cash,” she giggled sweetly.

John couldn’t help but smile in her presence. She was summer wrapped up in a bright yellow dress and white lace gloves but his heart still tugged uncomfortably. “Just been busy, is all.”

“Well I know that much. You getting offers from the new Ringling Brothers line up is quite the buzz. But I suspect… Well, to anyone who didn’t know you, they’d think you were an odd boy for refusing that kind on an offer. But I know you, my sweet John.” When he stared at his hands, she smiled to Amelia. “Darling I know it’s hot and you’ve been so much help, but would you go to Mr. Foley’s next door and offer him some of these jars? Thank you, my sweet girl.”

The door clicked shut behind her. Ms. Mabel moved at once, picking John up by his arm and leading him to the bed to stretch out more comfortably. She lay on her side and propped her head on her hand. “What’s happened, John?”

He put a pillow behind his head and stared up at the ceiling. “Mr. Foley bought these for me.” He showed her his new waistcoat and breeches. “He’s bought me everything, really.”

She sighed, rubbing circles on his chest. “Do you want any of this stuff?”

“I want Bane,” he answered simply.

She played with the blonde ringlets in her beard, nodding. It was longer than John remembered. He truly had been gone for a long time, trapped in a tower with no key. “What are we going to do about that, John?”

“Nothing. Foley’s got me chained by the ankles. I’m walking on eggshells as is. I won’t let him touch me. I’d sooner drive his car into the Mississippi.”

She tsked, “Don’t say that, sweetie. I’d be right along with you if something terrible happened to my little baby bird.”

He smiled. “How is Bane?”

“Still waiting for you to walk into that tent and give him another backrub.”

“Ringling Brothers won’t take him. I even told them I’d agree on a pay cut, just for him, but… They say he’s a liability, like everyone else says.”

“I see.” Amelia knocked quietly on the door. Ms. Mabel huffed as she stood up. “Well, I must be off, John.” She kissed his forehead. “You’re far too young to have to go through all this. But in the end, I think, you’ll find a way. If you got to drain that old man of his money or leave Bane behind and just visit him, you’ll figure it out. Everyone does, sooner or later. You’ll get your lover.” Amelia knocked again, even quieter. Ms. Mabel clicked her tongue, annoyed. “I swear that girl can’t be alone for four seconds without panicking. I’m coming, Amelia! Take care of yourself, John. Don’t give up hope. Can you do that for me? Good. That’s my boy.”

+

**October 14, 1929: Corinth, MS**

It was easy for Foley to ignore all the nerves buzzing around the backstage of the Big Tent. They were all scared that the show would tank with the lightning storm approaching. He wouldn’t be the best ringleader if he didn’t know circuses. Sure enough, the crowds came in full force, filling every seat. He grabbed John for another kiss though the boy still never kissed him back. No worries, John was young and easily swayed by everyone else’s fears. Foley checked his hair one last time before grabbing his top hat. He started the show on a high note.

Then one of the idiot trapeze boys missed his mark an hour in. A broken arm. It wouldn’t end his career, but it wouldn’t make it any easier. He could be in recovery for weeks, enough time for a younger, more skilled boy to take his place. Not that Foley cared.

He wanted to follow John back to his dressing room when the boy’s set was over, perfect as always and looking especially fuckable in his new costume, but he had a circus to run, after all.

 

John stayed in his dressing room throughout the rest of the performances, hoping the lightning would strike the tent and blast them all dead. He dressed lazily in his casual clothes. No need to rush when his master would come barging in at any second anyways now that the show was over.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

John was slipping into his boots when he heard the commotion and heavy running footfalls towards the stage. He followed the slower feet, his mirror for his hair still in hand.

It shattered into a million pieces on the ground when he stepped forward. This was a nightmare. John was paralyzed.

“Oi, Foley why you got to pick on Bane, huh? If you piss him off we’re not saving you, mister,” Eddie shouted, holding back Barsad, the tamer looking as nervous as the others.

Bane paced the floor, his hands in fist, chest heaving. Foley’s whip lashed out again but Bane didn’t take the bait.

Barsad had a black eye. The cut on his cheekbone matched the glittering ring on Foley’s finger. Ms. Mabel was collapsed in a fit of tears.

“Come on, you disgusting brute, show me how angry you can get that I hit your little handler. I told you Russian to keep your dog on a leash. Did you see how he charged at me?”

Someone from the back yelled, “No he didn’t!” and was met with several murmurs of agreement, much to Foley’s outrage. He whipped Bane again.

His back and chest bled. He was seething.

John pushed forward. “Peter?” At that the man glanced back at him, whip still raised. “What are you doing,” he asked carefully, avoiding Bane’s eyes.

Foley waved at him to get back. “I’m showing you and everyone else here how a real man, not some filthy coward like the Russian, handles beasts who don’t know their place.” His whip came down again.

Alfred grabbed John by the back of his shirt, pulling him back to the crowd. “Foley stop it!” But the man wasn’t listening.

Suddenly Bane lashed out, the end of the whip caught in his hand, he pulled it back, nearly sending Foley forward when the whip soared out of reach behind the hulking man. Foley skittered backwards out of arm’s reach and yanked a long pipe from one of the stage worker's hands, brandishing it like a sword.

Barsad waited for Eddie’s arms to slacken the tiniest bit and jerked, pulling free. He rushed forward just as Foley was about to strike.

Bane’s arm went up to protect himself from pipe, but caught Barsad’s head. Ms. Mabel screamed from the floor when Barsad went down in a heap.

Bane stumbled back, dread and cold panic washing over his face. He reached to pick up his brother.

That’s when Foley struck, the pipe connecting with his muzzle and jarring him enough that he missed the second blow to his chest and back when he cowered forward over Barsad, protecting him and shying from the pain all at once.

John was screaming too and didn’t realize he’d gotten between Foley and Bane until he had the pipe in his grasp, wrestling it from Foley. He was knocked back but charged forward again, spitting in Foley’s face. He wrenched the pipe free and tossed it out of reached.

Foley stared at him, enraged, in awe as he wiped his face. “John? Sweetheart, why…?”

John was shaking like leaf, his voice vibrating out of his chest. “Don’t you ever touch him again, you… you _monster_.” The crowd gasped and muttered all around them.

John crouched down over Bane. He had to pry Bane’s fingers off of Barsad’s barely conscious body when several others rushed forward for the man. He took Bane’s face in his hands, kissing every inch of it that he could touch. “It’s okay, Bane. I got you. They’re going to take Barsad and fix him up. It’s okay.”

He could only hope. Barsad never looked more like a corpse… John didn’t want to think further on that, wasn’t prepared for that reality. He wiped tears from Bane’s eyes and took his hands, soothing him enough to calm down.

Foley was still wiping at his face when John turned back to him with pure disgust. “I mean it. Stay away from him.”

“John? You…” Realization hit him all at once like a gut punch. He stepped back, floored. He turned on his heel and shoved through a dozen men, his face red with anger.

Now was the time to panic. John got Bane to his feet as quickly as he could. No one stood in their way as they hurried from the tent.

They were in trouble, John knew it. He had no time to get back to his own tent and if Foley was there waiting for him… he pushed the tent flap open. Bane immediately moved to the cage and let it lock behind him.

“No, no, no, Bane, what are you doing in there?” He searched the tent for the keys. “You got to get out before—”

“John. Where?”

John forgot everything else in the world. His eyes filled with tears. “Bane? Did you just…”

He could only believe it when Bane tried again, his voice strangled and grainy like racking coals across a stove floor. “John. Where?”

John sobbed and rushed into the cage, grabbing Bane in a steel grip. “I missed you too. I’m so sorry, Bane. I promise I’m never letting you out of my sight ever again. No matter what happens. I promise. I’m going to keep you safe, I promise.”

“How fucking cute.”

John startled, turning to face Foley.

The man looked utterly disheveled, liked he’d trashed his trailer searching for the gun in his hand.

“Peter—”

“You know I must be the biggest idiot on earth,” he bit out, voice rising as he stepped closer, his pistol aim shaking between Bane and John. “I gave you _everything_ John. I made you a star, _I did that_! Not you! And this is the thanks I get? Humiliated in front of everyone by a whore and a drooling fucking mental case!”

John shielded Bane as much as he could as he moved slowly out of the cage bars and closer to Foley.

“I don’t get it John. What does _he_ have that I don’t, huh? Muscled thugs like him barely have any brains to begin with, and he’s even more damaged. And yet, you picked him over me?” He shook his head, his lip quivering. “I hope you didn’t take that Ringling offer.” He cocked the pistol and aimed it at John’s chest making John’s heart freeze. “Of course, if you did then you're untouchable. Right?”

John dove forward when Foley aimed at Bane, feeling the hot gunpowder burn the side of his hand and wrist. The bullet ricocheted off the bars. Foley’s knee jerked up into John's gut, ripping the air from his lungs, but still he fought to disarm the man.

He was distracted when he heard the metal bars groaning behind them. “No, Bane! Don’t! Stay back!” Foley elbowed him in the ribs sending him to the ground. He got up quickly, using all his weight to tackle Foley to the ground before he could fire off another shot.

Finally, the gun knocked free and slid out of reach.

A scream broke free from John’s lips when Foley pulled a knife from his boot and slice his stomach. He dumped John off of him and pinned him to the ground. It wasn’t a fatal cut at all but it still hurt enough for John to lose his upper hand.

“I just don’t fucking get it, John,” Foley sobbed. “You would even shed blood for that monster.”

“No,” he hissed, “You’re the monster. You always were.”

Foley stopped breathing for a minute. The last shred of sanity he possessed drained from his face. He punched John hard enough to stun the smaller man and still picked him up, slamming him to the ground until John was barely conscious.

John was dragged, kicking and biting even as his head spun, over to the haystacks and roughly pushed down.

Bane was roaring now, a bar popping loose and then another groaned louder than before.

“Bane…stop! He’ll kill you!” John struggled against Foley’s weight, shaken by the rage in his eyes as he tore open John’s bloody shirt. His ears were ringing, vision spotting in and out but still he fought until the last of his strength drained from his very bones.

He was pushed further into the haystack, barely able to breathe when Foley forced himself into John. He bit hard enough into John’s neck to draw blood, his grip bruising, nearly crushing John’s arms as he held him down.

He was turned suddenly, giving only a second to draw in air before Foley was back, driving in hard, tearing him. John clawed at his hands when they tightened around his throat. Everything was too loud, too bright.

Not soon enough, his world faded to blotted colors and then black.

When he opened his eyes, Foley wasn’t on him anymore. He tried to breathe but his throat burned. He could hear screaming but that voice wasn’t his. He was bleeding and aching, feeling like he’d been run over by a truck, but he was alive.

He tried to support himself on his elbows and blanched, struck by what he saw. “Bane…please…no…stop,” he tried, voice gone, but it was already too late. He flinched when Bane’s hands came down on Foley like an anvil one final time.

If John felt run over by a truck then Foley…Foley must have been run through a meat grinder.

Bane hovered over the man’s corpse, heaving, scraps of the ringleader’s shirt balled up in his bloody fists. He turned when he heard John move, his eyes red and blurry with tears, thinking John was dead.

The cage was mangled into something like a blown open tumbleweed. Bane rushed over, yanking the blanket out of the mangled steel and wrapped John up carefully, his tears wetting John’s face. Bane scooped him up in his arms.

What on earth could they do now? It was a grave question. Foley was dead, Barsad injured if not dead himself, both at Bane’s hands.

He was as good as hanged. The stage workers wouldn't bother to even send for police. Bane wasn’t a man to them, he was an animal and worthy only of being put down like one.

“JOHN?!”

John startled through his tears when the tent flap burst open.

Eddie halted in his tracks, his rifle cocked, looking frantic. His eyes quickly assessed the room, the cage, the blood on the haystacks, Foley, John. Rage boiled his skin red. He gripped the rifle but hesitated to shoot, eyeing Bane.

After a tense minute he cursed. “Fuck. Bane? I don’t know if you can understand me or not, but you’d best figure out a way—”

“Eddie…please,” John begged. “It’s not his fault. I swear.”

The lion tamer pulled on his own hair in frustration.

He knew what he had to do, but couldn’t. “Fine'" he sighed, "Go to Barsad’s trailer. Wait there.”

“Eddie—”

“Just shut up and fucking wait there, alright. And you,” he point the gun at Bane’s face. “If my assumptions are incorrect, if you did do this to John, I will fucking cut you up and sell the meat at the market tomorrow morning, understand? Now get in the trailer, don’t go anywhere else.” He moved out of the way of the opening, watching them pass, watching Bane for any sign to shoot.

John bolted the trailer door behind them, trying to move through the pain and nausea both warring to cripple him.

The cot groaned every time Bane moved the slightest bit. He could barely fit in the cramped space.

This wouldn’t work. They couldn’t hide in here forever and Eddie could only hold the others off for so long. The second they found Foley’s body they would come after Bane. Foley was too important for them to do anything less.

He rummaged through Barsad’s clothes. When he slipped stiffly into one of his shirts it finally hit him. Barsad could be dead. His eyes burned.

“John.” Bane knelt behind him as he wept on the cluttered floor. “Sorry?” Bane’s presence grounded him, brought him back. He still had to protect Bane. 

He clutched his neck, breathing in his scent. Bane moved to take off his muzzle. He rubbed his nose over John’s.

“No matter what happens, okay? No matter what happens, I’ll be right there with you to the end. I promise.”

Voices shouted from outside. John pushed Bane back from the door. He tried to stand but it sent pain lancing up his spine. Bane was there to help him to the cot. He curled up in Bane’s lap clinging to his arms. Bane’s nose pressed to the back of his battered neck. He could see fire from torches glowing outside from the small cracks in the curtains.

He startled when a muffled voice boomed just outside the door. He didn’t say a word, didn’t dare to breathe lest they be found out.

Several minutes passed, more voices joined the first crowd.

Someone was banging on the door now, jiggling the lock. The door was slammed with a heavy thud.

“No matter what, Bane,” John breathed, gripping Bane tighter when tears wet his shoulder. “You don't have to be afraid. I got you. No matter what.”

The door bent and buckled until another voice pushed the others back. A bullet tore through the lock, swinging the door open.

Eddie’s rifle was over his shoulder when he stepped in and  looked them over. “Oi! They’re in here,” he shouted to the others. “Tell the Russian to stop fucking panicking or knock him back out.” His arm was bleeding and his shirt, John noticed, was torn. “You ought to the be lucky,” the tamer muttered. “Good thing Bane was there when old Solomon got his teeth in Foley. Nothing to worry about now,” he stressed, picking his words carefully so John could understand him. “I was able to shoot the lion before he could kill another, yeah?” His brow rose in question.

John released his breath, feeling lightheaded. He petted Bane’s hands. “Thank you… for saving us, for everything.”

Eddie shrugged, eyeing Bane curiously. “That old lion would have gotten his comeuppance sooner or later. I told you it was an omen.”

“Yes, you did. Thank you.”

Bane had to keep him upright when Eddie left, his exhaustion taking over all at once.

Bane’s nose touched the back of his neck again. He let the tears fall freely, succumbed to overwhelming relief.

John let Bane pull him back further onto the cot, still holding onto him, his rock, John's anchor in the hurricane.

 

++++


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So glad this was recommended!
> 
> However, what began as a real and true epilogue ended with...well, lots of cuteness and then John and Bane knocking boots again. XD
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> Again my lovelies, your support has been paramount!
> 
> Now off to the next John/Bane or Arthur/Eames adventure! 
> 
>  
> 
> \--Your Wilderness Pal, Bear

+

**October 11, 1933: Syria, VA**

John’s hands were sore again. He rolled his wrists, massaged his palms, his fingers.

It was troubling; his body shouldn’t be wearing out this quickly, granted, so long as these hands could keep him on a rope, keep money in his pocket, well…he’d smile through it as soon as the season kicked up again. Just relax and take it easy in the meantime.

He wanted to sleep on the train back home but couldn’t. Just one more city. He was too close, too close to the long hike up the hill, to the front porch, to…

Well, he did sleep. Exhaustion clearly won whatever fight had waged inside him because the train’s breaks were squeaking to a halt at the station when he blinked.

John hitchhiked a ride and slept again, then another ride and more sleep. Thank god he was a little famous now, or he’d be robbed and dead out here in these woods in no time.

Every family he sat with in their cars wanted him to do something for them. It was refreshing to not be propositioned in _that way_ , but did no one understand how hard it was to contort in these clothes? He did a cartwheel in the grass and posed for a photograph for a father working for a newspaper even if he still had no idea how such small cameras worked, nor would he read the offered paper. He’d be impolite to refuse, though society didn’t think it impolite for the man to assume John could even read that well.

His feet were concrete blocks and his knees melting butter when he finally waved goodbye to the last truck and began his trek up the hill. He breathed in the crisp mountain air and watched deer eat in the neighboring fields. The leaves were changing all around, blanketing the trees and the mountains like multi-colored quilts over old, sleeping giants. Almost home.

The screen door swung open and smacked the wall behind it. Three little blonde fluffs of curls bounded down the steps and up the driveway as fast, if not faster than, any toddlers ought to run. John was exhausted, but he’d get nothing but glares from the little girl and her twin sisters if he made their chubby legs run them all the way up the drive without putting in a little effort himself. And boy was he happy to see how big they’d grown since March.

“Afternoon, Ms. Clementine, Ms. Sophie, and Ms. Caroline.” Still a mouthful. “Clementine, do you mind taking my luggage up to the house and upstairs to my room, please,” he teased, prying Caroline off his legs while Sophie tried to scale his back.

Clementine took one look at his bulky bag and shot him a glare so severe it could have stripped the floorboards off the porch.

Just like her daddy. If Barsad could see her now he would indeed be proud.

“Easy, easy. I bring you gifts, your majesty,” he beamed, picking her up and planting her on his hip, no clue how he’d carry the twins  _and_ his bag, however, now satisfied, Clementine smiled as brightly as her mother. “Where is everyone, anyways?”

She pointed to the back of the house, still not talking. He continued to ask her questions up the drive and still she offered nothing verbal. Her signing was nearly perfect, excellent for her age. The twins’ were both wonderfully proficient as well, though they could slowly pronounce a few words here and there as well.

John almost dropped Clementine on her head when she wiggled out of his arm and clambered up the porch steps with her sisters to the sound of their mother singing. His body wanted to carry him up the creaky stairs to bed and sleep for the next month or so, but he had family waiting. Family he couldn’t wait to see himself.

“Well, look what my babies brought me,” Mrs. Mabel blossomed like a sunflower when she spotted John at the backdoor. She squeezed him a hug that could put Bane’s bowling ball-crushing days to shame, inspecting him head to toe, making sure he hadn’t lost a pound or hair strand.

His face had to be covered in her lipstick. There were very few more wonderful things on this earth.

“Tell me everything, John, every detail,” she smiled, as if she and John hadn’t written each other every week, hadn’t received every news clipping, every photograph he sent her.

He gratefully accepted her tall glass of lemonade and let Clementine wiggle into his lap at the table while the twins brought him a furry caterpillar from the steps. They giggled and ran when he put it on Sophie’s nose.

He shrugged. “It was… nice, I suppose, to travel again. The crowds were good—the general audiences at least. You can tell all the financers who voted for Roosevelt and the ones who didn’t just based off of the food they served us at the dinner parties. The Democrats served food we could all actually digest and maybe afford if we stole a few extra nickles from the patrons. The Republicans on the other hand, well… I didn’t know a roasted duck could cost nearly four dollars, but they do in the Hamptons.”

Mrs. Mabel laughed. “Oh boy. I know my Robin stuck out like sore thumb next to all those uptight rich folks.”

“We all did. They’d bring us to the dinners for entrainment, really. None of those people really wanted to dine with a lizard man at their table but I suppose it gives them some kind of bizarre prestige or an extra boost to give the circus more money. And I swear the fat cats in New England are just as grabby as the stagehands from the Big Tent. It was pretty funny one time, though. The Ringling folks wanted Pierre to bring his tigers cubs with us and they pissed all over the hostess’ dress. Twice,” he and Mrs. Mabel snickered with glee. “New Mexico was the worst. I still don’t even know what caviar is and wine tastes like shit. They carry on as if people aren’t starving just up the street in town. But I won’t have to worry about those anymore. I got asked not to come back to the donor dinners in the Southwest after I offered a hungry maid girl my untouched soup. The _nerve_ of me, I know.”

Mrs. Mabel tsked. “There you go again, John, stirring up trouble for those rich folk,” she grinned, shaking her head, “What am I going to do with you? Any good news?”

“My contract’s been renewed. There was just some debate over whether I’d go with Barnum and Bailey or stay with Ringling. The offer was, well… We can get the wood stove fixed now before winter. And the truck. We’re lucky.” Extremely so.

Mrs. Mabel swelled with pride. “Even in these desolate times, you’re still soaring. My lovely boy.” She cut her eyes out to the field. “Your Bane’s been keeping awfully busy too. He cleared out that one corner of the field and built the girls a pen for their little chickens. Even helped old Mr. Montgomery pull a few stumps out of his field so his sons could start planting again. Bane just fell in love with turning our little plot into something we can live off of. Just look at him.”

John followed her eyes and ended up with lemonade out the corner of his mouth. Bane was in a worn t-shirt that stretched obscenely across his chest and arms, the straps of his overalls hung loose around his waist. He had a harness meant for a workhorse draped over one shoulder as he pulled the massive plow through old roots and hard soil.

“ _God damn_ , Mrs. Mabel,” he whispered, awed. He caught her patting her stomach out of the corner of his eye and smirked. “You got a lot of nerve telling me Bane’s been busy. And what have you and Barsad been doing?”

“Each other,” she grinned, watching her husband lead Bane’s plow in a straight line, wiping the sweat from his brow. He glanced over at her periodically with a hunger in his eyes that made even John blush. “Making another playmate for the little sugars in your lap. Now that the field needs work, they can’t keep Bane up and running around all the time. Man needs his rest. Granted, I suppose he’ll have you to chase after now.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

“About that…”

“Patience, John. We’ve been here before. Always takes less time than the last for him to get his wits together when he sees you.”

“I didn’t expect the season to go on past September with all the budget cuts and ticket prices going up. I would have been here sooner, and maybe that would’ve helped, but—”

She held up her hand and placed it on John’s. “Hush, darling. I've read him all your letters and talked about you everyday. He’ll take one look at you and it’ll be fresh, new love all over again. And the moment he remembers that he’s all yours, well… Just make sure he doesn’t break the bed again, hm? Nearly every furniture store this side of Virginia’s been shut down. Only but so many beds Barsad can find in that good and sturdy of a condition these days for Bane’s size.”

He blushed when Clementine gave him a knowing look.

Mrs. Mabel saw her and threw back her head in uproarious laughter. “That’s my wicked little firstborn! Can't slide anything past her. My beautiful Clementine, sweeter than the real thing. Isn’t she precious, John? She’s got a crush on Bane, you know. Oh, she’ll despise you by the end of week for taking her big ol’ grizzly bear from her, I swear it.”

Bane and Barsad approaching saved him from having to answer.

It was odd; Bane was the one with a poor memory, couldn’t remember who John was whenever he left for more than a handful of months, and yet John felt just as nervous and excited too, like it was his first time meeting Bane as well.

The man stood at the foot of the porch steps, hesitant but enthralled by this new person. John wasn’t soaring through the air on trapeze but he might as well have been. Bane watched Barsad hug John when he and Mrs. Mabel stood.

John didn’t think he’d ever get used to seeing Barsad so healthy and content when he kissed his wife’s cheek and ruffled Clementine’s hair, picking up the twins.

“You left a boy and returned a young man,” Barsad’s smile for his wife still clung to his lips. They talked about John’s season for a long while until Clementine grew bored and went to Bane.

John watched her scale Bane’s leg and waist until she reached a comfortable perch on his shoulder. John was incredibly jealous.

“Bane, dear,” Mrs. Mabel gently beckoned. “Come on up here and let John have a look at you. Come on, now.”

It seemed that John wasn’t the only person on that porch holding his breath, hoping.

Bane was almost heartbreakingly shy around unfamiliar people, afraid that he would frighten them or be ridiculed, particularly now that he no longer wore his muzzle, but he did as Mrs. Mabel asked. He towered over everyone—or rather, Clementine did until Barsad took her off his shoulder. He was swimming in toddlers now, but Barsad was as a calmly content as ever.

"Do you remember the Big Tent, and the cage," Barsad asked Bane. "Who used to slip through the bars when he thought I wasn't looking and give you jars of Mabel's lemonade?"

John extended his hand politely, steeling his heart. “Hello, Bane.”

Bane glanced to Barsad, making sure it was okay, before extending his hand as well, but paused. He did remember that cage and... The rope bracelet on John’s wrist matched Barsad’s and Mrs. Mabel’s. He touched John’s wrist carefully, petting the rope, wondering. He had made this bracelet too, years ago perhaps. Hadn’t he? 

“John.” Not a question, no inflection on that one syllable, just ‘John.’

John’s heart quickened. He smiled brightly, but now he was tongue-tied.

Mrs. Mabel swooped in to save them both from just staring at each other. She rocked Clementine in her arms. “Bane, honey, be a gentleman and help John carry his things upstairs.” She elbowed Barsad when she caught his mouth twitch in her peripheral. “You can finish the field tomorrow.”

She watched Bane and John go back inside the house and rubbed circles on her husband’s back, shaking her head. “They’re going to break the bed again, those two. You know it,” she said under her breath.

He snorted, trying to hide his grimace at the thought. “Don’t worry, I put the crates from your lemonade deliveries under their bed. It should help.” He hoped.

+

Bane’s eyes followed John’s legs up the stairs and didn’t stop staring after he put John’s bag near the foot of the bed.

Not much had changed since John had left, except that the box of letters and photos he sent Mrs. Mabel were set up on the desk and walls like trophies. He touched the frame of a circus poster from four months ago featuring him on the aerial hoop and Eddie standing proud with all his lions, even the cat that ripped a hole in his neck a few weeks after the poster was made. Perhaps John would sign with Barnum and Baileys next season. Ringling wouldn’t be the same without the man who’d saved Bane’s life.

He sighed, releasing the weight on his chest and collapsed onto the quilt and pillows with a contented sigh. He was finally home and though the whole world was dark and crumbling outside of their little farm town, he could do his share of taking care of his family. That was enough.

He eyed Bane, who still hovered near the foot of the bed. “I need to be honest with you Bane, okay?” At Bane’s nod, he continued, “Listen, I know you’ve been trying your best to fit in and I know this might hurt to hear, but… I think I liked you better when you didn’t wear shirts,” he teased.

“John.” Bane smiled when his voice was met with dimples and the mirth in John’s eyes. Bane quickly ripped his t-shirt to pieces and stepped out of his overalls, making John shiver. Bane stood before him like a nude god ready to accept John’s eagerly given sacrifice.

He raised his hips to make it easier for Bane to undress him, but it was pointless. Bane just broke the seams of his waistcoat and breeches just as easily as he’d done his own clothes; didn’t bother with John’s shirt, hands delving underneath it with his unique kisses across the smaller man's stomach and the faint shadow of Foley’s scar.

They tumbled together, rumpling the sheets and knocking pillows to the floor, laughing when Bane bumped his and John’s head on the wall behind them and laughed harder when John smacked his own face in a valiant attempt to escape Bane’s tickling hands.

He racked his teeth down John’s hipbone, circled around with the soft touch of his nose, making John moan and turn on his stomach, legs wide, presenting himself for Bane to reclaim.

The mattress springs creaked and the frame groaned when Bane crawled over John, boxing him in. John caught the sheets between his teeth and hands though it did nothing to muffle him when Bane sank in one slick finger after another. He pushed back against his hand, feeling the weight and heat of Bane’s cock slide over his leg. He swore he’d die if Bane hooked his thick fingers again over that spot and nearly screamed when he began to ease John’s body open. Bane’s free hand unconsciously dug bruises into his thigh.

John hissed on the border of pain when Bane began to push in, his body barely adjusting. Thankfully Bane was never a pushy lover or impatient. He took his time, gripping the sheets in his fists. John's eyelashes were wet with tears. It had been so long, too long, since he’d had this. His body barely knew what to do with someone so massive as Bane. He blushed terribly, remembering Eddie’s words when he’d said that Bane was more hung than his lion alpha. The tamer hadn’t been far off. Bane felt John’s hand reach back and touch the place where they were joined and all sense was at once wrapped into a fireball of need. He pulled John up on his hands and knees and pressed in deeper, his hand reaching under and covering John’s, holding it there. He needed to only sink himself completely into John to crush that spot within, sending electricity through his nerves, the sheet underneath John already wet from his own leaking cock. His voice rose up to the heavens in praise.

Bane nosed the collar of his shirt, picking up the pace and pressing John’s hips flush against the bedding. He didn’t seem so concerned about crushing John under him now, and the prospect only made John feel surprisingly hotter, not scared. Several times Bane had to pull John back or risk bumping his head on the wall again with the force of his thrusts. Neither wanted it to end this soon but after months apart, with Bane’s hands guiding John’s hips back to meet his, his voice rumbling over John’s shoulder and neck, John’s body tightening around him, there was no way they could stave off the powerful release as it swept them both away.

It took several minutes for Bane to catch his breath and move to the side, watching John recover his wits.

John lazed where he’d been hammered flat into the mattress. Bane petted his lower back with the upmost love in his eyes, circled the darkening spots he’d left in a trail from hip to inner thigh until John rolled onto his back. 

John looked over at his torn breeches, a smirk on his lips. He wanted to lament the destruction of his clothes, but… Maybe Bane would show his shirt mercy now that their rush to love making was over. He certainly hoped so. He loved this shirt.

Bane watched him pet the buttons on it. He wanted at John’s stomach.

The first button ricocheted off the wall and clattered to the floor.

John sighed, trying to sound the littlest bit upset, but Bane’s eagerness was returning with full force and he was not far behind the man. He looked even larger than when John had left, and smelled like hard labor, power, and now, their sex. “This shirt cost more than Ms. Mabel’s pearls, Bane.”

In response, two more buttons hit the bedside drawer. John shook his head and chuckled. “All these months apart and you’re still spoiled.” Another button joined the rest near his discarded boots. “Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled, Bane.”

“John.” Bane’s hands were gloriously work-roughened and tanned over John’s skin.

He pressed his thumb to John’s chest just to see the color bloom underneath. It didn’t hurt John, Bane made sure to check. John was still smiling up at him with fond eyes.

“Yes, Bane.” His hands mapped those hills and valleys and the curve of Bane’s chest, feverish when Bane took his ankles in hand and bent him in half. He was always amazed by John’s flexibility though for John it was effortless—Letting Bane take him to the hilt once again when he was already sore from the first round? Now _that_ took effort. An effort that made his toes curl behind Bane’s head.

“John,” he rumbled, moving his hips none too gently, just the way John liked to be taken.

He laughed and moaned again when his nose touched Bane’s, filled with uncontrollable happiness. “You say that one word like it’s the only one that matters in the whole world.”

To Bane, it was.

++++

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. If anyone's interested in doing some artwork for this fic feel free! <3
> 
> For questions, inspiration tags, and more for this fic and others, visit grizzly-bear-bane.tumblr.com


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